Stargate: Australia
by jones2000
Summary: It's just another night at the pub, and then aliens attack. Can a sassy SAS chick, a child prodigy, a double agent and a man that should have been dead 10,000 years ago beat the alien menace? But will they ever measure up to SG1 anyway? Damn Americans...
1. Chapter 1

**AN: To read this, it helps to be Australian :) Many OCs. If you don't like OCs, look away.**

**S.A.S – Australia's Special Air Service, a branch of the military. Will accept recruits from the army, navy, or air force.**

**A.S.I.O – Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. Spies and spying.**

**(The RAI is completely made up, btw)**

* * *

"_Well, that was disappointing." Holding out the remote, she ejected the DVD._

"_What was?"_

"_Like you haven't noticed. An injustice has been done." My companion sat up a little straighter and glared sternly over at me still slopped all over the lounge. Inwardly, I groaned, feeling an indignant speech coming on._

"_There are no Australians on the Stargate program." She announced._

"_Imagine that. On a Canadian/American production." I said mildly. She shot me daggers._

"_That's not what I meant." She said. "I'm talking about when Stargate Command informed the other world leaders of the existence of the Gate, and we weren't there. We're supposed to be one of America's greatest trading partners, right? So why aren't we at any of these global summits?"_

"_Hm."_

"_Even in _Atlantis, _which is supposed to have been a global effort thing, there's not a Tassie, or even a New Zealander. No one at all."_

_I shrugged. It had never been really an issue to me. "Maybe someone thinks since we're so far away from everything that if aliens bomb earth, we probably wouldn't notice." I said. "There was that line in Stargate: Continuum, though…"_

_Both of us smirked, remembering Ba'al in _Continuum_ offering to give the continent of Australia to the free Jaffa._

"_One line in ten seasons, the movies, and the spinoffs, though."_

"_Maybe we were invited but Canberra told them to piss off 'cause the government can cause enough trouble without needing to go interplanetary."_

"_Do you want to know what I think?"_

"_Will it make a difference if I say no?"_

_She grinned at me. _

"_Here's what I reckon…"_

**December, 2003.**

All her life, Blue Jones had a sneaking suspicion that most of the people she knew were aliens. But still, imagine her surprise when she found out her first instinct was disturbingly accurate.

"You want me to _what_?"

She faced her boss, her commanding officer, unsure of herself. Surely he must have been joking. But he just stood there, stoic, waiting for Blue's face to erase its highly dubious expression.

"You've been here for almost ten years, and your track record speaks for itself. And it's not completely to your disadvantage that you mother is a foreign ambassador and your father in the ASIO." Major General Douglas Gordon said.

"Funnily enough, I knew that. I don't see why that makes me any better qualified for this… mission, though."

"The Australian Government has agreed that you have the correct… requirements for this level of clearance."

"I'm inspired with confidence."

"Don't get snappy, soldier. You offered to do your duty for your country when you signed up, and now your country is calling that in." Douglas said. "They were looking for someone who knew the value of being diplomatic and the advantages of… covert operations. Naturally I gave your name at once."

"Of course." Blue said sarcastically. She'd picked a bloody good time to develop an attitude problem. "But sir, you know… _they _don't really exist, right?"

"You can tell them that when you get there." He smiled humourlessly. "Now get your ass out that door before I kick it out myself."

And that was more or less how Blue Jones gained top-level clearance, lost her job with the SAS, and walked into the RAI, or Royal Australian Intelligence. The RAI spied on the spies, and was so secret that employees were left wandering around trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing. Not Blue. She knew exactly what she would be doing.

She'd become an _alien hunter._

It had taken months to track down her first alien, and then she almost had a conniption when she realised that the sneaky bastard had been under her nose all along.

She'd followed her target all the way from the supermarket, looking for the perfect opening.

He was kind of cute in a way that she couldn't place, and he walked with a slightly faraway look in his eyes like only part of him was down here on Earth. Blue peered at him from behind her oversize mirrored sunglasses that gave her the appearance of a giant bug, and pretended to be involved in reapplying her makeup, while watching her target take a phone call. He didn't look any different to anyone else out in the streets, kind of average and beaten down.

The RAI didn't tell her why they wanted this guy. Well, of course they wouldn't, in case she decided to keep him, or sell him to China or somewhere. These organisations were very clandestine like that. You had to guess what the other guy was thinking and leap into action based on the most plausible scenario.

A lot of recent wars had started that way, incidentally.

His name was Max Campbell, and he was qualified in everything from English to Astrophysics. Blue had doubts whether the RAI wanted him because he was an alien, or the government wanted his DNA so they could breed a new race of super-geniuses. She closed her purse as Campbell slipped his phone into the pocket of his jacket, his brow creased in worry. Blue frowned too. It looked like somebody had given him some bad news.

He was leaving. She followed, wondering why he had changed his mind and was now walking in the opposite direction. Nothing but a few abandoned houses from the turn of the century and a cement skeleton of a building that no one seemed to get around to finishing stood on that side of town.

At one point, he heard her heels and turned around to swiftly examine the person who was sharing the cracked pavement with him. He stared at her for a moment before his gaze shifted elsewhere. Blue almost shivered. His hard eyes had brushed against something in her deep down, something that told her that a man so young should not have eyes that looked so old.

It was… wrong.

_Okay, Mr Alien, it's time to get all X-Files on your ass._ Blue bent over, a perfect mimic of stopping to tie up her shoelace as Campbell turned around once more, his gaze puzzlingly fixed at a point above her head. As his eyes swung forward once again, she could not resist the impulse to look at the area of sky behind her, which had so entranced her alien.

There was nothing at all to be seen. Puzzled, Blue glanced back.

"Hell!"

In the fraction of a second that she had used to tilt her head, her quarry had completely vanished from her line of sight. Blue cursed again.

_He knows you're after him._

She brushed away the thought. There was no way he could have possibly known. Unless…

_Unless the phone call he had taken at the supermarket was from someone inside the RAI._

_Great. Just great. Perfect first day on the beat._ She strode down the deserted street, getting progressively faster until she was actually running. At that point, protocol demanded that she call in reinforcements, but strange feeling had built up inside her, a feeling that was unusually territorial. _There's no way some dick alien beats me on my own turf!_

Three hours later, she had to admit that she was indeed beat, and that there was nothing left for her but to go home and have a cup of hot chocolate while waiting for it all to start again tomorrow.

Blue ambled up her driveway. The neighbour's cats had left yet more surprises in her front yard and Blue looked at the steaming piles, for a moment seriously considering bagging them up and dumping it all in one great heap on the doorstep.

_Bitch._

Inside the door, she tossed her coat at the hat-rack and missed. The little red light on the answering machine was flashing, and Blue stabbed at it, leaning back against the wall.

"_Hi."_ Said a voice Blue didn't recognise. She folded her arms. It was probably another mate of Ian's, thinking that because she was now single, she was fair game. _"I saw you in town earlier, and from the moment you looked at me, I knew I had to say something to you…"_

_Here it goes… _Blue sighed.

"_You should have stayed away from me. People will get hurt."_ The voice said. Blue snapped to attention and lurched to the phone, anticipating the rest of the message, but with a loud crack, the line went dead.

"Hello, Mr Alien," Blue mumbled, snatching the handset out of its cradle and punching in the RAI's number. Perhaps they could trace him! She felt exhilarated, thrilled. She was on the hunt, and it didn't matter whether this guy was an alien or some other fugitive from justice. She'd gotten all the confirmation she needed that this bloke was up to something. The phone beeped in her ear, twice. And then the signal died.

Suppressing curses, she gave the cradle a smack. And then she inspected the cord and the phone line.

"Ah." She said, looking up. A childhood of watching horror movies had brought her into adulthood subconsciously expecting the next twist. "That would explain it, then."

Max Campbell was leaning against the doorframe leading into the lounge. He was still in his scuffed leather jacket, ripped jeans and ratty sneakers; not your typical alien warlord. But Blue's phone cable was dangling from the ends of his fingers. As she watched him, strangely composed, he dropped the cable.

"What do you want?" She asked, bypassing her first question, _how-the-hell-did-you-get-in-here-and-you-better-not-have-cleared-out-my-fridge-you-alien-bastard_.

"You're in danger." He said to her, his strange eyes keeping her pinned against the wall.

"Oh, says the man who broke into my house and rewired my security system. You think, muchly?" Blue snapped back.

Campbell's face took on a sour look. "Why are you here?" Blue repeated. He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could get any more words out, a scream echoed down Blue's street. Both of them reacted at once. Blue pushed past him and into the night. She was aware of him following her.

The street was silent and deserted, though she could feel the eyes of other residents on her back, those people who dreamt of being the Good Samaritan, but were too afraid of being sued to ever rise up to the challenge. Blue gritted her teeth and started forward.

She could hear footsteps on the ground behind her. Max Campbell gripped her arm tightly, halting her in her tracks. "It's a trap." He hissed.

"I can't take that chance." She retorted. It was only when she was running full-tilt toward the old construction site that she thought to wonder, trap for who?

Her alien must have left while the getting was good, for she was the only one that crept around the corner of the unfinished building. Blue light danced over her skin, and she pressed her back against the unfinished cement wall, reaching for a length of loose pipe above her head.

There were no more screams, and the only sound now was a low hum, rather like a microwave. Blue pursed her lips. She was handy with her fists, and wasn't too bad in a fight, but she still hadn't eyeballed the other players yet. She was about to risk sticking her head around the corner when two giant three-fingered hands landed heavily on her shoulders and yanked her around.

"Oh. Oh. My. God." Dazed, Blue wordlessly stared at the huge creature hulking over her. Scaled, rope-like muscles flexed in his arms as he held her firmly in place with one hand and reached for his scanner-thing with the other. A long lizard's tongue rolled out of its mouth, searched around in the air a moment, and then rolled back up. It grunted something at her in a language she had no hope to understand.

"What?" Blue asked dumbly, not sure of what else to say. All that she had been taught about aliens had dribbled out of her head faced with the stark reality. The terrifying figure released her and touched something set in his collar.

"Good evening." The alien suddenly said in perfect, if detached, English. "I am frightfully sorry, but I am afraid that you will have to be terminated."

_What?_

"Excuse me?" Blue blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means he's going to kill you." Snarled out a voice. Max Campbell leapt lightly down from the unfinished brick wall. "Isn't that right?" He challenged the other alien.

"The female has fulfilled her job and is no longer necessary." It replied in that infuriatingly polite way that could only have been gleaned from _How To Speak English _cassettes.

"You're wrong. The female is coming with me." Max countered.

"I am afraid you are most mistaken."

"Does the female get a say in this?" Blue demanded, thoroughly incensed by the thought of aliens deciding her fate for her. She jabbed a finger into Mr Lizard's squishy flesh. "First thing, back off, buddy."

Amazingly, it did, seemingly unsure of what to do next. Blue felt Max gently tug on the back of her shirt, and she allowed him to pull her away. "They're brutal, but they're not very bright." He said softly by her ear, indicating Godzilla. "Too many problems confuse them. You two could become best mates." He added snidely.

"Screw. You." Blue whispered back fiercely.

Just then, Lizard-Man decided that he was tired of thinking and was going to just mow them down. He let out a roar that was probably heard at the other end of town and charged.

"Run!"

She was acutely aware of the lizard thing lurching along behind her as Max Campbell loped along beside her. The two of them turned into a deserted playground and squashed themselves into the alcove below the barbeque in the lunch area. "They don't have very good eyesight or smell. Most of their superiority is based on only their technology." Campbell said. "So if we stay small and quiet it'll probably get bored and wander off."

Blue recognised the gleam in his eyes and reached out to smack his arm, hard. "You're getting off on this," she accused.

He frowned at her. "Don't thank me for saving your life. It's not like I had anything better to do, like _getting off this bloody planet,_" He hissed.

"What _are _you?"

The lizard-creature stomping around the area cut off the conversation, and for the next hour Blue sat cramped and cold squeezed in beside another alien in complete silence, and when Campbell finally confirmed that it was safe to get out, every possible way to shish-kebab ET had gone through her head.

"That thing tried to kill me,"

"Yes,"

"Hey. Hey!" Blue grabbed his arm. "That monster tried to kill me! Exhibit some concern, if it's not too much trouble."

"He was only going to kill you because you found me." Max said. "He used you to lead him directly to me. After you'd done that, he considered your contract terminated."

"My contract?"

"You were supposed to locate me, weren't you?" He asked bluntly.

"Well, yes-"

"And you were the only one assigned to the case, right?"

"What are you getting at?" Her eyes narrowed.

"What am I getting at? Look back through the RAI's archives, and I _bet _that there will be no record of this mission, and I _bet _that all your personnel files have already been erased from the database."

"You need top level security to do something like that."

"Yes."

"Are you suggesting that the government are taking backhanders from _aliens_?" Blue said scornfully, trying to picture the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in cahoots with Mork form Ork and Dr Spock. _Okay, maybe not so implausible…_

"There is no government on Earth that can conclusively say that they have proof of aliens. To reveal without a doubt the existence of other life forms in your galaxy would cause a panic." He eyed her curiously, like he wasn't quite sure what he should do with her.

"What's your name?"

She hesitated. "Blue."

"Your _real_ name."

"What's it matter, Spaceman?"

"I want to get to know my stalker a bit better."

Blue scowled. "It's a secret I'm only giving up on my wedding night." She replied bluntly. "So, who're you then? And you better not say John Smith or Doctor Who."

"I'm not sure who I am. Not anymore."

"Then who-?"

"Come on. That thing will sweep the area and then come back here since it was the last place it saw us. Let's find somewhere safe."

Blue looked at him, frowning. _Safe? Yeah, right._ "I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what you are." She said stubbornly.

"That thing employed your superiors to hunt me down." He grinned at her humourlessly. He paused. "I'm an Ancient."

Blue looked confused.

"An ancient what?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Harold Holt, PM – Harold Holt was the Australian Prime Minister from 1966. His ministership only lasted 22 months. In December 1967, Holt was swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria, and never came out of the water. The Navy and Air Force never found any trace of what happened to him.**

* * *

It took Blue completely by surprise as she realised that there were lighter colours tinting the horizon. By her reckoning, she had only been out with this madman for two hours, maybe three, tops. "I've got to go home."

"Don't you understand?" He sounded exasperated. "There are probably agents at your home _right now_ destroying any evidence you may have had on me. If you go there now, you'll be killed."

"Who will kill me?" She stared at him, and threw her hands in the air expressively. "You're talking, you're talking all the time, but you're not making any sense. My _bosses _want to kill me?"

"They were probably ordered to by their bosses." Max replied. Blue _harrumphed _and marched away from him. The cold wind bit at her face and neck. _How could-? But they- Was it-? Why would-? It's finally happened. I've finally lost it._

Her door was open, and light was spilling onto the lawn.

_He's right._

Shadows were moving in the windows. Blue stood there dumbly, not sure what to do next.

"Come on."

"Ah!" She jumped and looked over her shoulder at Max, who had managed to sneak right up to her without her noticing. "How did you-? Do you want to give me a bloody heart attack?" She demanded in a whisper. "Come on what?"

He reached out and gripped her hand. His eyes were hard and vicious, and for a moment his face was like something out of her nightmares when she was a kid. "There's only one way to show you how right I am and that you're as much of a fugitive as I am." He said, beginning to drag her up through the string of gum trees that surrounded her house. "Is there a back way in?"

"Ah… around the back?"

The two of them crouched down in the bushes to watch the men moving within through Blue's kitchen window. The back door was still securely shut. After a moment they vacated the kitchen and before Blue had realised what he was doing, Max had crept up the garden path and was frantically gesturing at her to join him.

"Are you. In. Sane?" She hissed.

"You need to see this." He whispered back with a stony face. "You got your keys?"

Being led up the garden path. She was too tired to even make a pun.

She fumbled the keys out of her pocket, Max wincing as they jingled together. Kneeling on the ground, she finally managed to find the keyhole and turned the lock. For the first time in her life she regretted not greasing the hinges as they screeched. "What if they have guns?" She hissed. Blue had a gun herself, she'd had one since she'd joined the army, but strict weapons-control laws meant she could not wear it when she was not directly serving the military. The rest of the time it had to be locked up, inside. Where the bad guys were.

"God, I can't believe I'm breaking into my own house."

"Trust me, it all goes downhill from here."

"I look at you, and believe it."

In three steps she had crossed the kitchen, and Blue shoved Max into her pantry as she heard footsteps approaching once more. She ducked down behind the kitchen counter, holding her breath.

"Did you get the files?" A man with blonde hair and upper arms as thick as your neck stopped at the other side of the counter. She could see his reflection in the stainless steel fridge. Blue slipped down to the ground, trying to make herself invisible.

"Right here." Another bruiser Blue knew by sight if not by name came forward holding a bundle of her case notes. She bristled at he lit the edges of the notes with his cigarette and dropped the burning pile on the counter.

"People will be awake soon, so we better get out of here." Blonde said. "And you better not have pocketed anything, you bum. You heard what the boss said."

Somewhat reluctantly the other bloke pulled a long silver chain out of his pocket. Blue clenched her fists as she watched him caress her grandmother's chain. "Leave it be." Blonde said again. "The cop'll find the body of Jones in the morning and we'll have the alien. And then the boss can make it work."

"And then we'll get our pay rises. Cheers to the RAI."

"Cheers."

The door slammed behind the RAI's two goons. Max opened the cupboard and straightened up, brushing flour off his knees. He watched silently as Blue doused the burning documents and slipped the chain into her pocket.

"We're leaving." She said calmly. She turned her eyes on him. "Wait by the car. Keep an eye out."

As her alien slowly did what he was told, Blue grabbed her coat, dog tags, and unlocked the cabinet housing her weapons. She pulled out her handgun. It was a Sig Sauer P226, and she liked the way it felt in her hand. Slipping it into her jacket, she locked everything up again. Shutting the door securely behind her, she joined ET by the car. "We're going on a road trip."

"Are you kidnapping me?" Max finally asked as Blue sped by the police station.

"I didn't know that term could apply to a Martian."

He frowned. "I'm not a Martian."

"I'm not letting you out of my sight." Max did not like her tone _at all._

"Why do they want you?" She asked suddenly. "What does the RAI want you to turn on?"

Max lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Don't know. I've never stuck around long enough to find out." He replied. "I expect it's some sort of tech that they've managed to get their hands on."

"Well, you space cowboys shouldn't leave stuff like that just lying around."

He gave a weak grin.

"Seriously, you never tried to find out what they had? What if they've got, I dunno, a giant doomsday device or something? Shouldn't you stop it?"

"And get dissected in the process? I don't think so." He spotted a town limits sign. "Where are we?"

"Tell me about the RAI."

"As far as I've been able to figure, the RAI is a dummy organisation for something else."

"What something else?"

"Keeping the populace under control." Max said bluntly. " Fostering ignorance. They've even had their hands in most political assassinations. Remember Harold Holt?"

"You're kidding. They killed Harold Holt? No way." She exclaimed. "How did you find that out?"

"I was there."

"Bullshit! That was like, like 1967, and you're not – you're not…"

"Not what?"

"You're not an old man."

"Aren't I?" He glanced at her, and looked away. "It's probably not entirely their fault anyway."

"'_Probably not entirely their fault anyway'_? Are you kidding me?"

"I'm fairly certain that there's someone else pulling the strings. Someone sent that stormtrooper last night to bring us in."

"Who?"

"Don't know."

"You know, that's getting really annoying." Blue pulled into a driveway behind a mud-splattered old ute. "What _do _you know?"

"You'd be surprised." He said. "Where are we?"

She flashed him a quick grin that erased years from her face and got out of the car. She banged on the top of the roof to let him know that he too could emerge. Max sighed. All those careful years of avoiding confrontation laid waste, because he happened to save the wrong woman.

Blue banged open-handed on the house door. Then she pressed her thumb down on the doorbell. And lent on it.

"Don't you think you're being a little obnoxious?"

"He deserves it."

"Give me a bloody minute!" Someone croaked hoarsely. A moment later the door opened to reveal a very hung-over man with stubble on his chin wearing a pair of ratty trakkie dacks. He squinted at Blue a moment before recalling her face.

"Christ, Jonesy, do you know what time it is?"

"After seven." Blue replied promptly.

"On a Saturday!" The man protested. "I'm a very busy man and I don't have time to play today." He said, mustering as much indignation as he could. Blue glanced behind him at the scantily dressed blonde girl that crossed the hall into the bathroom.

"Very busy." She raised an eyebrow.

To his credit, the other man's expression didn't flicker. "Who's the flake?" He folded his arms and indicated Max with a nod of the head.

"Be nice." Blue said sternly. "This is Max Campbell. Max, this is Harry Evans." She glared at him. "The people I work for just tried to wipe me off the map." She told him soberly.

"They _what_?" Looking incredibly shifty, he swung the door open wider and ushered both Blue and Max in off the street.

"The RAI just tried to ice me, Harry." She looked at him blankly. "And something tells me that you might know why."

"I don't like your implications." He continued to look sceptical. "What do you want me to do?"

"I need to know as much as I can about the RAI."

"You know I can't-"

"You owe me. I swear we're square after this." Blue said. "Or, you know, I could always tell your superiors about that time you broke protocol on that job in Dubai."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "You're a very devious woman, Jonesy."

Blue just beamed.

The ASIO agent showered, shaved, and poured himself into a smart black suit, transforming from an alcoholic wife-beater to an only-slightly-dodgy-used-car-salesman. With much umming and erring and awkward pauses on her behalf, Blue was graciously loaned a dark tailored suit by Harry's girlfriend, the unnamed vivacious blonde.

She looked over to Max, which was sitting precariously on the edge of the expensive leather lounge, looking very much like he wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole. "Are you alright?"

Blue couldn't catch his eyes as they were hidden behind his brown fringe. He was muttering something, she was sure. She lent forward to catch it. "_I swear I won't get more involved. I already told you._"

"You what?"

Max shook the daydream out of his head and looked back up at her. "It's nothing."

She pursed her lips. "I'll respect your cryptic nature for now, space cowboy." She told him. "Maybe it's better if you stay here."

"What?" Harry piped up from the kitchen.

"Relax, Romeo. Him and Barbie can play scrabble or something."

Harry glared at her as he straightened his tie. "You ready?"

Blue shrugged. "No?"

"Good."

Blue and Harry had been friends on and off since childhood, when Blue stole his GI Joe in Primary school. Their parents always took great care not to leave them alone in the same space for too long. Not because of the typical reasons boys and girls weren't kept together as they entered adolescence, but because knowing Blue and Harry, you'd come back after an afternoon shopping and there'd be fresh scorch-marks on the kitchen ceiling, strange bald patches in the lawn, the cat would suddenly do anything you told it and the dog would look at them both with newfound respect.

Trouble. Always trouble.

The ASIO files said nothing. Blue slapped them back down on the desk and glanced nervously toward the door. "Are you sure we won't get busted?"

"It's Saturday." Harry said patiently, like the answer would cure all the world's ills. "How many tight-ass workaholic junkies do we have on this continent besides you? Have you any idea how much this is messing with my internal body clock?"

Blue glared at him. "You've got a man in every government organisation in Australia, and some abroad. You have to have _something_."

"Yeah, about that." Harry scratched his head.

"What?"

"The RAI is the only one that we haven't been able to get people into. Normally there's someone that you can milk, a weak link in the government you can exploit. But not here. It's like they just came out of nowhere one day and modified everything around them into thinking they'd been here for years."

"Hm." Blue said. "What do you think about-?" She turned to Harry. "What the hell are you doing?" She demanded of him. Harry was standing resolutely still, one hand on the alarm, and the other grasping in his fist some sort of alien gun thing. Almost like the phasers on Star Trek.

"You know I am sorry about this." Harry said casually. "I mean, I actually did like you. But you couldn't just die, could you?"

And he fired at her. Sparking electricity shot through her body and Blue collapsed to her knees. "Bastard," she spat.

That was her last coherent thought.

* * *

Max should really have expected it, but it still came as a shock when there was a knock at the door. The blonde lady, Carrie, went to answer it, and before Max really had time to register what happened, he had probably half a dozen pistols aimed at his head.

He sighed. He just _knew _this was going to be a bad day. "Alright, then." Max said, arms held wide.

"Take me to your leader."


	3. Chapter 3

"Ah." She blinked up at what she assumed must have been the ceiling. Each time she opened her eyes, it was no lighter than it had been before. After a moment she realized that it wasn't herself, but the darkness of the room.

"Good morning."

"Damn." Blue said. "We've really got to stop meeting like this." She squinted. She could just about make out his smile, rather like the Cheshire Cat's. "Morning? Are you sure?"

"I counted."

This time Blue had no trouble believing his straightforward statement. "Where are we?"

"A holding cell in the RAI, I would expect."

"Harry-"

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

A bare bulb above their heads flickered into life, and Blue was temporarily dazzled by the sudden illumination. As her vision returned, she saw that there was a door almost right in front of her. Tentatively she clambered up off the floor and reached out.

"I wouldn't do that."

"Ow!" Greenish energy bit at her fingertips and she tucked her hand under her arm.

"I told you I wouldn't have done that."

"Shut up!" Blue snapped in frustration. She covered her eyes with her good hand, a picture of a Greek tragedy. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."

"Yes." Her alien gave her one of his one word answers. Blue's arms dropped and she glared at him.

"No." She said suddenly, a thought occurring to her. "I'm beginning to think this is all _your_ fault. Who are you?"

"You know who I am."

"The _real _you."

For a moment it looked like he might have actually answered her, but then the door slid open with a pneumatic hiss. Max and Blue both audibly gulped.

A huge man was standing in the doorway, filling it entirely with his massive bulk. He glared at the two prisoners before stepping aside, to admit into the room-

A boy.

The kid was maybe fifteen or sixteen, with a head full of messy blonde curls. He peered at them excitedly, or rather, he peered at Max excitedly. It was apparent that the kid was looking for something deep and meaningful to say, but the only sound that came out of his mouth sounded like a cat choking on a goldfish.

"Isn't that an exploitation of child labour?" Blue murmured. The boy seemed to regain his composure after a minute, looking less like an excited puppy and more like Blue's maiden aunt.

"It's an honour to meet you, sir. I never thought I would live to speak to the Architect himself."

"Architect of what?" Blue hissed. Max raised his chin and looked down his nose at the teenager, suddenly haughty and arrogant and regal.

"You know who I am." It wasn't a question.

"Oh, yes, sir. I have been compiling information on you for quite some time now."

"You have a fan. Aw, that's… kind of creepy." She looked at the kid coldly. "Who are you and why should we give a crap what you say to us?"

"My name is DJ."

"That's nice. Aren't you a little… little for this getup?"

"I'm a prodigy." His chest swelled proudly.

"And ever so humble with it too, I see." She said coolly.

"I am a scientific advisor to the Royal Australian Intelligence agency and an expert on alien technology. Specifically the technology of the Ancients."

"Ancients. You said you were an Ancient." Blue remarked, glancing at Max. "God, I _knew_ this was all your fault."

"She doesn't _know_?" DJ was amazed.

"_She_ doesn't know _what_?" She peered at him curiously.

"He designed the lost city of Atlantis!"

"Get out!" Blue gasped. Max looked embarrassed, and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Only part of the city and the computer core," He mumbled. "It's nothing, really."

The bouncer interrupted the meeting by tapping DJ the wonderkid on the shoulder. "The boss says it's time." He said, indicating his headset.

"Time for what?" Max asked carefully. "I don't think I want to go anywhere with you."

The other man gave a toothy smile. "All we need is a little of your DNA. It doesn't really matter whether you're alive or dead. What do you say?"

Blue couldn't keep her sense of direction in the cold grey corridors that all looked the same. She looked up at the ceiling, remembering that not that long ago she was working in an office up there completely unaware that all this was happening beneath her feet.

It seemed so much longer than just two days ago.

"Ah, Lieutenant."

She recognized the voice, and anger leaped in her chest immediately. Slowly she turned to face the Director of the RAI, a short, pudgy man with a squeaky voice. She knew she shouldn't be shocked, but she couldn't help it. It was like finding out that the wizard in the _Wizard of Oz_ was not just an old balding man with a megaphone, but an old balding man with a megaphone and a very big knife.

Towering several feet over him was an alien.

Blue guessed that it was of the same breed as the one that had attacked her the night she met Max, but this one seemed much, much older, his craggy skin drawn into scars and his jagged teeth making him a demon right out of the nightmares you had as a child. A bandoleer slung with bombs was draped casually over one shoulder and he carried come sort of scythe as well as his blaster. Blue managed to tear her eyes away from this frightful figure and looked to the Director's left.

Hands in his pockets, leaning back casually against a trolley bearing automatic rifles was Harry, the corner of his mouth turned up like he was laughing at some private joke. He caught her eye.

_And winked._

Blue gave him a hard stare, but the moment was gone and he once again acted like she wasn't really there.

The Director turned to the lizard creature. "That's him?"

"He is the one." It agreed in a low gravelly voice, much different to the faux gentleman in the construction site. Blue looked at the folds of bluish skin around his neck and noticed that this one was not wearing a translator.

"Do you have any idea how tired I am of hearing that?" Max sighed. "No one just stops around for drinks anymore."

"Silence! Plithss commands it!" Plithss stared down both Max and Blue before turning to the Director and Harry. Blue spotted Harry's miniscule flinch as Plithss's rancid breath raked over his face. "We will join your people on the other side of the Gate. He will speak."

"If he doesn't?" Harry asked.

"Then he will either speak or die."

"Oh."

Max and Blue looked at each other.

Another room. Quite large, quite bare. Except for the massive stone ring held up by clamps at the very end of the room. The ring was gently pulsing with a softly suffused blue light.

"What is _that_?" Blue gasped.

"That, dear Lieutenant, is the Stargate." The Director said matter-of-factly. "Plithss and his people brought it all the way across the stars to us. A much more efficient method of travel than our clunky shuttles." She looked at the Director's bright eyes as he stared at the Stargate. The man was too far gone to see any sort of reason.

Blue turned to Max. "Subtext?"

"See that dialling device? The thing with all the buttons?" He said quietly to her. "That is used to input coordinates to another planet, opening the wormhole. After the portal is open, you step through and the Stargate dematerializes you here and materializes you on the other side of the wormhole."

She pulled a face. "Then I guess it's a good thing I haven't eaten today."

She watched as Harry stepped forward and pressed a combination of seven characters on the dialling device, each character lighting up in his wake. Finally he pressed his palm down firmly on the orange half-sphere set into the middle of the device and the Stargate whirled into life. Blue took an involuntary step backward as the wormhole activated and what looked like a swirling wall of water reached out for her.

"Through." Lizardman barked. No choice to be had, guns still aimed at their backs, Max offered Blue his hand.

"The first time's the worst." He said.

And for the blink of an eye, they ceased to exist.

Dark. Again. Blue was beginning to wonder whether anyone, anywhere, knew how to change a light bulb. In front of her on a desk was a stone that was emitting some kind of light, and she stretched out her hand.

Plithss jabbed his gun at her. "Do not touch." He snapped. "He isn't expendable. You are."

"Then why am I here?"

"Insurance. In case he does not do what he is told." Plithss hissed.

"He barely knows me." She argued back.

"Shh." Max cut her off. "I know this place!" He shouted at Plithss. "This is my laboratory!" He sounded anxious and furious at the same time. Blue squinted around herself, trying to find anything that looked remotely laboratory-ish, and then Max snapped his fingers and the entire room lit up, leaving Plithss's people and those wearing the RAI badge blinking in the sudden glare.

"This is one of the many outposts that we have uncovered." DJ mentioned, still clutching his clipboard. "While many appear to have been created as military stations, this one's function appears to have been purely for research. However, the devices we have uncovered will only activate when we have procured the DNA code of the… proprietor."

She didn't like the way he said _procured, _but Max wasn't listening; instead he was absently running his fingers over benchtops, around test tubes and conical flasks, and over the spines of the many books that lined the walls. "Look at this place," Blue whispered. Then her eyes fixed on something tucked away in a corner. "Max?"

"What?" He followed her pointing finger. "Oh, it's you." He sighed regretfully.

In that corner stood a massive stone block, inset with a bed of crystal. "You've _got_ to be kidding me." Blue peered into the depths. Dead, sunken eyes stared back at her.

It was tall, it's head only just off the ceiling. It was bony and almost twiglike, with a massive doglike head and gigantic canines. It's hands were almost all claws, and its knees bent backwards ending in giant spurs that could rip you apart.

But it was frozen. Stuck there in the pod. Blue touched the crystal, and her hand came away with an iced palm. "He's in stasis."

"He was discovered when we first began exploring the site." DJ said. "We – I – believe he has been frozen here for at least 10,000 years."

"Longer." Max said softly, eyes fixed on that face that only a mother could love.

"However, since his discovery, we have begun to notice that his vitals have been failing. We could not turn off the stasis to treat him, so Plithss suggested that we find you. The officer in charge of this Ancient outpost. We must revive him."

"We've named him AUS1." The Director said. "All the archives we have been able to enter have not been tied directly to the core, so we have not been able to identify his race."

Max was silent for a moment. "Furling." He said finally.

"What?" Blue asked.

"Their race is called the Furling."

"Yeah, right." She said. "Something called a Furling is supposed to be small and cute and maybe furry, not big and ugly rip-your-guts-out-without-noticing."

"They haven't been a warlike race for many thousands of years." Max said. "They left this region of space long ago."

"So why's he here?"

He ignored her. "Do you have any idea of what you're dealing with?" He demanded.

"I've got a feeling that you're going to tell us." Harry folded his arms.

Max's face was deadly serious. "This race has existed since the beginning of the universe." He said. "Some stories say even longer, and they were remnants from the destruction of the last universe. They can transport themselves from this dimension and into the next like any one of you would walk into the next room. Tens of thousands of years before I was born, my people went to war with the Furlings. Whole galaxies blinked out of existence!" He fixed the Director with a piercing stare. "Trust me, Director, you don't want these people as your enemies."

"I do believe that is up to us to decide." The Director said primly. "Oh, the things we have learned simply by studying this room and those beyond it. Imagine what we could learn once we have a real alien in our midst."

_I don't like where this is going,_

"And you, sir, are as much of a trophy as our tall friend here. Fancy, the last of the Ancients, right here. Oh, the power we will have! China, Korea, America, all the great nations of the world will bow to the might that is the Australian Empire!"

Max and Blue stared at the director. Harry and DJ had the decency to look embarrassed.

"And with Plithss's people by our side, we will rule this world!"

There was silence after this mad declaration. Into the void left by the Director's outburst, there was suddenly a loud rasping noise, like a wet cloth being dragged over gravel.

_Plithss was laughing._

The Director blinked in confusion.

"You pathetic grub," He sneered. "You actually believed that our people would ever have any interest in ruling this stinking backwater of a planet? Your forests nonexistent, your waters swimming with pollution. You have populated yourselves into near extinction, and you cannot see the stars for the smog. You should be ashamed of your own stupidity. No, we have much grander visions then lording over this barren rock."

"I – I…" The Director could not get out the words, his eyes wide.

"Dear Director, you and your people were always the means to an end. A stepping stone to something greater."

"W – what?"

Plithss fixed Max with a snakelike stare. "Him." He said. "The discovery of the Furling was an added perk, but _he's _the key." He turned to the Director. "And therefore you have turned from insignificant to obsolete." The lizard man reached out, and before the men of the RAI could react, Plithss had hooked his claw around the Director's head and broke his neck.

The body tumbled to the ground, the look of surprise still on the Director's face.

"Kill them." Plithss said, swinging his scythe. "Leave the Ancient and the girl to me."


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

Harry pushed DJ aside as Plithss's soldiers met Earth's in a clash of weapons. Blue seized the AK-47 of the man who had fallen beside her. Slamming it into her shoulder, she fired a clip into the advancing lizard warriors in front of her.

"If you're going to do something fabulously clever, now would be a good time!"

Max was studying the Furling's stasis pod, as if trying to remember how to turn it on. "In a minute."

"_We haven't got a minute! Just plug the damn thing in already!_"

"It's not that easy, it's-" The stasis chamber whirred into life. "Hel-_lo_."

Out the corner of her eye, Blue noticed something. Something charging at them like a bull. And she screamed.

"_Max!_" He turned to see Plithss bearing down upon him, swinging his scythe in wide circles.

"You shouldn't have done that." The alien said matter-of-factly. "The moment you brought the computers online, your life was forfeit."

And he plunged the blade right through the stunned Ancient. Blue screamed as Max collapsed to his knees.

"_MAX!!_"

"And lo!" Plithss screamed at his brethren. "The Last of the Ancients is dead, and we shall triumph over all those who would destroy us!"

Max blinked. For a minute or two his eyesight had gone a bit fuzzy, then everything snapped back into startling clarity. Kneeling on the ground, he clasped his hands over the hilt of the scythe and slowly pulled the curved blade forward, gasping in pain as it slid out of his chest with a sickly wet slither.

"You might want to hold off on that coronation for a bit," He said, tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. Labouriously he climbed to his feet.

Plithss was staring at him in stunned amazement. So was Blue.

"But that's _impossible_!" She gasped.

"I'm good at impossible." He told her.

But Plithss wasn't speechless for long. "How extraordinary." He said. "An Ancient who cannot Ascend yet cannot die. But can _bleed_." His face took on a crazed feral look. "Now how about that."

"I thought it was rather clever." Max said in an offbeat kind of way, and pressed his hand firmly into a port on the Furling's stasis chamber.

The ice began to thaw, cracking and splintering. The body was not so easily seen now, though it appeared to be twisting underneath the crystal.

The pod shattered.

Standing taller than even Plithss, blades glinting in the artificial light, the Furling bared his canines in what could have been either a grimace or a smile of greeting.

Plithss apparently took it as a challenge. "Fire! The Furling is mine! The Architect is mine! Subdue them!"

Blue pulled the kid DJ behind her as Plithss pulled the trigger. She braced herself as she waited for the red killing beam to strike.

It never came.

The Furling was looking at them all curiously; its head cocked to the side like he was considering what he should do with them all. Blue could hear triggers cocking uselessly all across the room as the creature eyed each of them in turn, before turning back to Max and giving him a grateful smile.

Max nodded.

"Orright, people, let's move out!" Harry's voice could be heard above the whispers that had broken out. Once again he was behind the dialling device tapping in an address he had learned by wrote. "All Earthlings please board the vehicle and disembark in an orderly fashion."

Max turned back to Blue. _Go_, he mouthed. She shook her head frantically. Suddenly Harry's hand had wrapped around her upper arm and he was yanking her backwards toward the Gate. "Time to pack 'er in, Jonesy." He said, DJ tucked under his arm. Using all his slight weight, he threw them backwards through the wormhole.

The last thing Blue saw before she was broken into atoms was Max and the Furling, facing down the remnants of Plithss's army.

"Argh!" As soon as she felt she had sufficiently materialised, Blue spun around.

She slapped Harry across the face with as much power as she could muster, putting all her anger, frustration and hatred in the blow. Surprised and caught unawares, Harry stumbled back against the wall.

"You spineless, gutless, pathetic little crawler!" She shouted at him as the last Earth soldier passed through the Stargate and the wormhole died. "You backstabbing dick!"

Harry's pale cheek was swiftly turning an angry red. He shielded his face with his hands defensively. "You did this! You were working with them all along!"

"Okay, you aren't going to believe this, but I haven't done what you think I've done."

"So it wasn't you that ratted us out to the RAI?" Blue sneered.

"Well, I might have done that, but – wait! You know how I said that ASIO couldn't get a bloke into the RAI?" Blue nodded. Harry spread his arms wide. "I lied a bit. I'm ASIO's guy on the inside. I had to prove to them that I could be trusted."

Blue blinked.

"In that case-"

She slapped him again.

"You sonovabitch, dial the Gate, get me back _right now_."

"I can't do that." Harry said through gritted teeth.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because the Director built a failsafe into the computer for this trip. He could Gate back to Earth once. After that the address is disabled. Both ways."

"So that the Director could escape but leave everybody else stranded there." Blue said. "Oh, God."

"Excuse me?" DJ cautiously raised a finger.

Both of the adults looked at him coldly. "What do you want, pipsqueak?"

"I should be able to remove the lock." The teenager said seriously.

"How long?"

"Depending on the code, I would expect perhaps a minute or so. In effect it would be the same as taking the childlock off the VCR."

"Get to it." Blue commanded as Harry turned to the pseudo-military of the RAI.

"The Director has been deposed." He said in a clear, ringing tone. "As the next ranking agent, I have assumed temporary control of the RAI and its facilities, and of this moment the governing of this agency has passed to ASIO hands. ASIO will be here in a moment to receive your statements and ask you to sign a confidentiality form. From there you may either go directly home or your employment may pass to ASIO." He looked at them sternly for a moment. "Chop, chop, spread the word!"

Slowly the Gate room was emptied. There was a blue glow behind him, and Harry turned to see the Stargate billowing into life. "Good work, kid!" He crowed into his earpiece.

DJ's voice was tinny. "That wasn't me, sir."

Harry let off a string of expletives and scooped two abandoned automatic rifles off the ground, passing one across to Blue.

She flicked off the safety. "You're pretty sure I wont shoot you?"

"Pretty sure." There was a click as the chamber slid into place. The two stood side by side, aiming into the void, by their own admissions a fairly paltry Earth defence. But looking into the wormhole, all Blue could think about was all the arguments she'd had with her Mum. Every time Dad burnt the sausages. The smell of her grandparents' house. Hot chocolate. That cute guy on her block she'd never spoken to.

A million little fragments.

"Guys, I'm getting a text." DJ said on speaker.

"Copy."

"I quote, _'__H&B, guns down. Don't require xtra hole. Invite +1 coming through.' _"

Blue sighed in relief and lowered her gun. "It's Max."

"How can you be sure?" Harry demanded.

She winked. "Trust me on this."

He glared at her. "Don't do that. Ever. Again."

The surface of the Stargate shimmered and convulsed and then Max was standing there, all long legs and dopey boyish hair. Blue's eyes were drawn down to the tear in his shirt where Plithss should have killed him. But didn't.

_Don't these spacemen ever follow the rules?_

A fraction of a second after Max was through, he was followed by the hulking, beclawed alien creature. The Furling. It looked at both Blue and Harry, it's eyes wide and bottomless. And it inclined its head politely to them.

DJ pattered up beside them as Blue picked her jaw up off the floor.

"Where's Plithss?"

"Gone. For a long time." Max said. "How long before ASIO gets here?" He asked Harry sharply. Harry looked shocked that Max knew.

"Ten minutes." He replied.

"Good." Max said. "The Stargate can't stay here. The Commander will remove it from this planet."

"What?" Harry was aghast. "That Stargate is the property of the Australian Government. You are not authorised-"

"Give me _one_ thing that has happened here which has been authorised by the Australian Government," Max snapped back. "This device is too dangerous to remain in your hands."

"But we can still run the program!" DJ protested. "In secret. We could have teams out there, visiting the stars!"

"I have no doubt. But there is no way it can remain here." It was clear that Max was trying to cash in on whatever authority he possessed as the last of the Ancients, but the humans weren't going to let him off that lightly.

"Why?"

He sighed. "Because then there would be three active Gates on this planet."

"_What_?" Blue, Harry and DJ exploded at once.

"For a while now. " Max said. "There was the first Stargate, discovered some time ago in the deserts of Egypt. That Gate was commandeered by the American Air Force and currently they have exploration teams of their own out there running from a secure facility in the States."

Blue thought that she was all surprised out, but that jolted her to the core. "And you didn't think it was worth mentioning the fact that the damn Yanks are already out there, making the whole of Earth a bunch of brand new enemies?"

"Where's the second one?" DJ asked tentatively.

"Frozen. Temporarily dormant."

"Where?"

Max grinned sardonically. "Why? So you can go out and retrieve it as soon as I've turned my back on you? If any of you had any idea of the consequences-" He inhaled deeply through his nose. "Two or more Gates running simultaneously are bound to lead to power overloads, as the Stargates attempt to draw power from the same source, like plugging in too many electrical cables into the one socket. Then there is the matter transference."

"The what?"

"Imagine entering the wormhole at the exact same time as another team from across the world, dialling almost an identical address. Full matter transference is when you are physically switched in each other's places. Or there is partial matter transference…"

DJ cottoned on first. "You mean we might… have extra bits?"

"Are you sure?" Blue asked.

"I knew the man who created the network."

"Of course you did." She rolled her eyes.

"The Commander will take the Gate with him." The great mute Furling nodded.

"How?" Harry asked suspiciously, clearly not sold on how a massive stone ring could disappear in under five minutes.

Max smiled. "Science."

"Fine." Harry said furiously, throwing his hands into the air. "Don't say anything. ASIO will be here any minute now and they'll find two aliens for the price of one." He stormed off.

They watched him leave.

"I suppose I'll have to go back home, then." DJ said in a small voice, abandoning his Ancient clipboard and headed for the door.

Blue remained. Standing beside Max, she watched as the Furling opened the Gate with no more than a slight cock of his head. With one final respectful nod, the Furling strode up the gangway and into the shimmering surface. As he disappeared into the Stargate, the ring shimmered.

Blue stared as the Stargate phased slowly out of existence, shifting into a dimension that was far beyond her own scope of understanding.

"Wow." She said.

"Yes." He agreed.

ASIO cars and vans had pulled up in front of the RAI complex, parked right across the rolling lawns. Harry was in the thick of it, helping to coordinate the cleanup effort. Blue was certain she heard the phrases _brainwashing_ and _illegal human experimentation _and _government corruption_. Max zipped his jacket up over the crusted bloodstains on his shirt.

"There are some things you haven't explained yet."

"Haven't I?"

"Don't start that." She looked across to the RAI staff being marched out into the hands of ASIO. "That was your lab."

"Yes."

"And there was an alien frozen in your lab."

"Yes."

"Why?"

He was quiet for a long time as they walked through the gardens. No one attempted to stop them, though there were some strange looks cast their way.

"Like I said, the Furlings left our region of space a very long time ago." He said. "At that time, there had been a hole in the fabric of this dimension, and the Furlings had converged to repair it. The hole was patched, but they were never seen again."

"I was only young, then, and I was stationed in a research outpost just outside of a little developing galaxy when my equipment picked up a molecular disturbance. Before I could contact my superiors, a temporary dimensional rift opened, caused by interplanetary shift. You know how sometimes you can see stars where you know they can't possibly be?"

Blue nodded.

"The Furling that came through the rift was injured, and only would say that he had once commanded a great fleet. And that I could not tell anyone that he was here. Even when he was well enough to leave, he would not, and insisted in being placed in stasis."

"Why?"

"As well as having quite unique powers to phase in and out of an uncharted number of dimensions, the Furling race have highly evolved precognitive abilities."

"They can see the future?"

"He said there were things he still had to do in this dimension. Important things. And I would wake him when they began."

"How would you know when it'd be the right time?"

Max stopped walking. Blue stopped as well and they looked at each other.

"Because he showed me you." Max said. "A pretty girl with red hair and big blue eyes."

Blue's cheeks burned. She hadn't been called pretty since she was about eleven. Then her eyes widened. "Exactly _how_ much of me did he show you?" She asked suspiciously.

Max just smiled.

"The Architect." Blue said.

"Ah." His look then was a little sad. "That."

"When I first joined the scientific research team, I inherited thousands of years of research from my predecessors in the field. The art of Ascension."

"The what now?"

"Ascension. A steadfast belief that has existed almost since the beginning of recorded time among my people that one may outgrow one's physical body and ascend to a higher plane of existence."

Blue looked at him sceptically. Max sniffed. "That's what I thought at first." He said about her disdain. "Until I discovered the formula. To prevent other races we didn't approve of ascending, my people cloaked the formula under heavy spiritual beliefs, saying that only those who were completely pure and mentally prepared are able to reach the higher planes, but at the very bottom of all that new age crap was one simple mathematical equation." He shook his head. "And so I was christened the Architect of Ascension."

"Why didn't you Ascend?" Blue asked.

His expression turned bitter, like there was still a sour taste in his mouth, even after all this time.

"To Ascend, your physical body has to undergo a very real death. I was – young. I wasn't done with my life yet. So I hung onto every last moment as my life as a mortal while my friends and family Ascended. But as the years passed, I began to see the evil I had unleashed on the universe by the discovery of the formula. I can still see it. The ability to Ascend was no longer exclusively ours, and some of the others-" His eyes assumed a faraway look before he snapped back to Earth. "Finally I was ready."

"What happened?"

"In the time I had been alive, they decided they didn't want me." Max said. "I tried to ascend, but they wouldn't let me. They left me, picked me up and put me back, the last of my people, alive to witness the evils that my research had unleashed on the universe. Witness but not interfere."

"That's cruel." She was horrified. "They would not have their powers if it wasn't for you. How could you have known back then what would happen?"

"It is their way."

"That's not good enough!" Blue spluttered. Max smiled ruefully. "You saved me, though. That's interfering pretty big, isn't it?"

"I was shown your face before I discovered the formula. You became part of events in that moment whether I liked it or not. Even the Ascended do not interfere with established events. You and I _had _to meet. Destined, almost."

"Destined." She knew that nothing else would ever be the same after this. "You. You talk about all these great things like they were so long ago, and then everything stops the moment you meet me."

He shook his head.

"I had feared death and was given unending life. I have seen all the stars in the sky that you look up to at night so many times that the universe had lost it's shine." He looked embarrassed. "You've put some of that shine back."

Blue grinned lecherously. "Go on."

Max wrinkled his nose. "Never mind, the moment's gone."

Blue had unlocked her car when she heard footsteps approaching behind them.

"Lieutenant Clementine Jones?" A woman questioned. Max pulled a face.

_Clementine?_ He mouthed at her incredulously. She shot him a dark look.

A casually dressed man in glasses and a suited woman with a clever face were looking at her. Straight at her.

"I'm, ah, Doctor Daniel Jackson." The man offered his hand to both Blue and Max. "This is Doctor Elizabeth Weir."

"Pleasure." The woman nodded her head briskly.

"Americans?" Dr Jackson frowned upon hearing the suspicion in Blue's voice. "This is Max Campbell." She introduced her companion. "He's a-" _immortal alien fugitive scientist who can't die and has the key to the meaning of life_ "-a consultant." She returned Dr Weir's calculating look. "We have clearance." She folded her arms, her stance conveying that she would not move until they talked. She'd already had a hard past couple of days.

"Mr Campbell-" Dr Weir started.

"Doctor." Max corrected mildly.

"Anyway," Dr Jackson polished his glasses on his shirt and did not continue speaking until they were safely back on the bridge of his nose. "Dr Weir and I are here representing a highly classified division of the American military known as Stargate Command."

_Oh, you've got to be kidding me._

"The Stargate is a piece of alien technology that we use to send teams of explorers through to other worlds."

_Bingo._

"Why are you telling me this?" She asked suspiciously.

"Because, Lieutenant Jones, you have been chosen to step through the Gate on what is possibly Earth' most important mission to date." Dr Weir said. "We are going to Atlantis."

Blue just looked at the doctor, wondering whether the woman would be offended if she burst out laughing.

* * *

"_So that's it? What happens next?"_

_"Oh you know, the usual." She said with a toss of her hand. "Scary monsters, space battles. Blue heads up her own team under John Sheppard and the boys run ASIO's alien research facility."_

"_And then what?"_

_She sat back in her chair, looking infuriatingly smug._

"_I might tell you about it, later."_


	5. Chapter 5

"_So."_

"_So? Have you thought about the rest of the story yet?"_

"_Why don't you go watch TV or something and leave me alone?"  
_

"_Mum thinks it's good that we're interacting without hitting each other, so she can cancel the child psychologist she hired. So you said that was part one? What happens next?"_

"_Well, the next part takes place in five years, after_ Atlantis _is over, but before the movie."_

"_Why five years?"_

"_Because I can't think of anything right now that Blue could have done in Atlantis without screwing with continuity. Now shut up a minute..."_

**February, 2009.**

She'd never been to San Francisco before. He insisted on showing her around while neither of them had anything better to do, which was sweet, but she really didn't know quite what to make of it.

"And there's Union Square over there, or we could take a ferry out to Alcatraz."

"Mm." At his expectant face, she waved a weary hand across her eyes. "Listen, I really appreciate you doing this, I really do, but I'm never going to do the whole tourist-y thing. Ever. That's just not me."

Major Evan Lorne grinned. It was a nice smile. "Well, if you don't feel like going to the legendary Alcatraz, I also know this nice little place in Chinatown, best damn noodles in the whole of Frisco."

"Is that an euphemism?"

"It's not unheard of. I mean, two people, in the workplace, close quarters 24/7, sometimes they have... noodles."

"Is that an order, _sir_?"

"I can make it one if it'll help."

"Are you sure that's even in regulations?"

Lorne's face turned thoughtful. "You know, I'm not sure. I don't think so, because you're military of a different country-"

"Evan, I was joking. You've beaten me with your literal sense. I'll have noodles with you."

"Good. Great." He nodded briskly. "I'll email you with a time and date."

"You're a real old fashioned romantic, aren't you?"

He grinned at her, and was about to say something more when he began to beep. Automatically he reached for his phone and as he opened the text he had received, his face visibly fell.

"Evan?"

"It's from the SGC." He said. "All Atlantis personnel are being flown back to the Command." Blue shrugged. The Major peered up at her. "Don't you have a cell?"

"I do. In a box of junk in the corner of my room. It wasn't much use in the Pegasus galaxy."

"Touché."

Stargate Command hadn't changed much in the last five years she'd been away. Same uniform grey walls. Same randomly blinking lights. The same mysterious cold breeze that clung to your ankles even in the middle of summer.

Major Lorne carded both of them through the doors. The various military men along the checkpoint exchanged respectful nods with them as the two soldiers walked side by side down the never-ending labyrinth of corridors.

The briefing room was slowly being filled by Atlantis personnel that had been shipped in directly from shore leave. Blue noticed quite a few outfits that were definitely not military approved. Evan Lorne nabbed a couple of seats in between Lieutenant Cadman and Colonel Sheppard. John was sitting with his head propped up in his hand, his expression blank. Blue could almost hear him wondering how the known universe was supposed to end this time.

"Thanks." Blue threw Lorne a smile as he held out the chair for her. Laura exchanged an amused glance with her Australian opposite number. The cheeky look on the vivacious blonde clearly said that she would be all over Blue later, demanding to know what happened with one of the most eligible members of the expedition.

"Good morning." She chirped cheerfully. "Lieutenant Jones. Major Lorne." She fluttered her eyelids and Blue felt like kicking her.

Evan nodded briskly and turned his attention back to the front of the room. Blue and Laura exchanged immature grins in the fraction of a second before the door opened and General Landry walked into the room, closely followed behind by Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson.

"People of Atlantis." General Landry began, standing at the head of the table. "Thank you for responding so quickly."

Apparently no one thought it was worth mentioning the fact that they didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

"And now I leave you in the capable hands of Colonel Carter." The old General nodded, not conveying any of the urgency of the earlier message in his manner.

Sam Carter changed all that.

"We've got a problem." The Colonel said, flipping on the projector sitting on the table. A photograph of a star system appeared on the wall. Blue sat up straighter in her chair. She knew that star system very well. She'd travelled those stars three times a week for five years.

"The Pegasus galaxy." She murmured.

Obviously she wasn't the only one who had come to that conclusion, as murmurs had broken out right across the room. Blue blinked and peered closer at the pixilated stars and planets. It was the Pegasus galaxy, no doubt about that, but there was something wrong, something that shouldn't be there...

"Those planets shouldn't be there." Blue said into the silent room.

Colonel Carter looked across the room for the voice, and focused on the foreign redhead sitting up the back of the room. For the first time since Blue had joined the Stargate program, a senior officer other than John Sheppard actually noticed she existed.

"Those planets shouldn't be there." Carter agreed grimly. "Congratulations-?"

"Lieutenant Jones."

"Congratulations, Lieutenant Jones. Very astute." She turned to the whiteboard and outlined a system of several planets that had appeared from nowhere. "Now, you've all been called here to be asked a simple question."

The room held its breath.

"Having spent so long in the Pegasus galaxy, is there anyone in this room that has ever encountered a species with the ability to bend matter? Something that might not have been included when you filed your mission reports?"

_What the hell is she talking abou-? Oh._

_No._

Blue sat up straight as the room erupted into whispers around her. Suddenly she was transported back five years, back to the country of her birth. Back to her first alien.

'_He said there were things he still had to do in this dimension. Important things.'_

Crap.

She dropped her head into her hands.

Dr Jackson flipped open a folder in his hands and stepped up beside Carter. He adjusted his glasses on his nose before speaking. "The Pegasus galaxy is not the only region of space where this anomaly seems to be occurring." He said. "A week after this was noticed in Pegasus space, this was recorded by NASA in our own space."

Carter changed the photo on the projector. This time the region of space was even more familiar.

It was their home system.

In the middle of the Milky Way, there was a vast empty hole. A hole where there shouldn't be a hole. A whole stretch of stars were missing. Just gone.

There was a planet, clearly seen through the veil. A planet that could not possibly be there. Really _couldn't_.

"That's Earth." Laura whispered by Blue's elbow.

'_You know when you see stars that you know could not possibly be there?'_

Carter tapped the planet with her whiteboard marker. "Shadow Earth," she said. "has been sighted numerous times over the past several decades. Up until this point, I had thought it was just a well publicized hoax."

"Which apparently it was not." Jackson added. "There are mythical connotations associated with the planet, 'Shadow Earth' being the very literal dark side of man. Which in our line of work may very well literally translate into an alternate reality. A reality that at certain times, we can glimpse."

"I don't quite understand, Colonel." Laura Cadman said carefully. "What's happening here?"

Another stab at the photo with the whiteboard marker.

"Asgard technology and our allies have identified this-" She drew a line from Shadow Earth to the extra planets in the Pegasus galaxy. "-And this, as a tear in the fabric of reality."

Daniel Jackson rubbed his glasses on his shirt. Blue wondered whether the nervous compulsion was developed simply so he wouldn't have to look at things he didn't want to. "Not just this reality. All of them."

"And if we can't eliminate whatever is causing this effect, our whole universe stands the risk of falling into another dimension. In which case, as I have learned from experience, our reality and theirs would cancel each other out."

General Landry stepped back in. "As this effect began in the Pegasus galaxy, Doctor Jackson thought it would be worth asking you, as the Atlantis teams, if you had ever encountered such beings or technology."

The silence of the room rung in Blue's ears. A little voice in the back of her head was demanding that she speak up.

"Anything, no matter how insignificant you may think it is."

Blue opened her mouth, and even managed to emit a few squeaking sounds, when a siren cut through the air, red light being thrown around the room.

"_Unidentified incoming traveller."_

All the military men and women seemed to rise as one, no matter how inappropriately attired, and in a matter of moments, the Atlantis personnel were swelling the numbers of the men of Stargate Command who were standing guard over the Stargate, waiting for the incoming traveller.

Blue and Lieutenant Cadman squeezed to the front of the line, each of them taking an AK-47 from the rack and seamlessly joining the ranks of the SGC.

Laura raised the weapon to her shoulder. "I'll want to know all about you and Major Lorne later, y'know?" She said casually.

"I kind of thought so." Blue replied, just as casually. "Let's save the world, first."

The iris thudded into place, and just as swiftly, it opened once more. Blue's eyes widened in surprise. Laura looked just as momentarily stunned, and then her military bearing took over once more.

And then it was over the intercom, and in their heads, all at once, right across the Stargate complex.

"_People of Earth, blood of the Ancients, do not fear us. It is time that we should finally meet, face to face."_

There were no more words. Stunned beyond belief and shocked to her very core, Blue lowered her weapon.

"What the hell are you doing?" Laura hissed at her.

"It's alright. They won't hurt us."

"Yeah? The Force telling you that, Master Yoda?"

"In a way." Blue said, and carefully she placed her gun on the ground and stepped over it, away from the ranks of the SGC. She heard people behind her muttering and Laura called out, but she ignored them all, and waited for that she knew would walk out of the Gate.

_He_ stepped through to greet her.

"Fire!"

"What about the Lieutenant?!"

"Blue!"

"Fire!"

It was quite an unusual sensation. Blue was aware of bullets passing through her, but they did her no harm. She had a strong idea that he had slightly put them out of sync with the rest of the universe. The Commander gently placed his clawed hand on her shoulder and bowed his head to her. Blue returned the gesture. "Forgive me for not introducing myself to you sooner. I required time to process your language."

"That's cool."

"It is a great pleasure to see you once more." The Furling said.

"It is, Commander."

"We live in interesting times." He told her gravely. "We must be wary."

Blue nodded. For the first time, the Furling seemed slightly annoyed by the fire of machine guns, but no more annoyed than one would be by a fly. He cocked his head to the side, and as soon as bullets were fired, they phased out of existence at least a good two metres before they reached him. Hand still gripping her shoulder, she and the Furling walked side by side down the gangway.

"May I speak to the head of this facility?" The Commander asked politely in flawless English.

After a moment, General Landry stepped forward to greet the alien presence, SG1 following closely at his heels. Dr Jackson's eyes swiftly brushed over Blue, recognising her after a moment as the woman who had shown more than a little reluctance over being chosen for the Atlantis program.

"I am the head of this facility." He said.

"I am pleased to meet you, General."

"How did you-?"

"You were just thinking it." The Commander nodded.

Colonel Mitchell and Colonel Sheppard exchanged worried glances. Mitchell rubbed the back of his neck, while Sheppard looked up at the ceiling, looking like he was determined to empty any remotely perverted or lecherous thought from his mind.

"I hope you don't mind me asking," Colonel Carter stepped forward, her curiosity overruling protocol. "But who exactly are you?"

"You have every right to ask, Colonel Carter." He said. "I am the commander of a once great fleet, which is no more and has been no more for longer than this world has existed. I am one of the last of the Furlings."

Blue could almost hear the jaws of those who had been around the Command long enough to know what he was talking about dropping to the floor. The Commander grasped Blue's shoulders, looked into her face, and then curiously looked to either side of her.

"But where are your companions? I was positive that you all would have made your way to the Stragate."

"Not quite." Blue confessed. "DJ had to finish school, Harry got married, and Max... is being Max."

It was only then that what she had done and what she was saying finally dawned on her.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear rather sheepishly. "Oh, boy."

John Sheppard, as unflappable as usual, took a step forward. "It looks like you owe us all a _very_ good explanation, Lieutenant." He said casually.

And even though his voice carried no hint of a threat, Blue's smile froze on her face.

"I must speak with the scientist." The Commander said to her.

"He's in Australia." Blue said. "Half a world away."

"You have travelled so far and yet merely across your own world seems so distant." The Furling stated. His hand dropped from her shoulder. "I had thought you would know by now that distance is no obstacle." His great dark eyes focused on something far beyond her, and Blue blinked.

"-and that means that-" He looked around curiously. "What the hell-? How did-?" His eyes focused on Blue standing behind her and he frowned. "Of _course_ you would have to be behind this."

"Hi, Harry." Blue said to her friend sheepishly.

"Blue? Harry?"

"Hey." She said in relief, spinning around again.

Max was standing there, looking as out of the loop as Harry was. While Harry's temples had begun going a dignified grey, Max was the same as always.

"What have you done?" He demanded.

"Me? Why is it me that's done something?"

"Hello?"

"DJ!"

The young supergenius was no longer a pimply teenager, that was for sure. He'd grown into his gangly frame. He stood there, his mouth open, backpack hanging from a shoulder. "I was just pulled out of a psychology lecture," He said dumbly. "The professor is going to kill me."

"I'm, ah, sure we can fix that up." Daniel Jackson said weakly. "Ah, who are you?"

Harry, Max, Blue and DJ looked at each other.

"Sirs and ma'am, this is Agent Harry Evans, of ASIO. Doctor Max Campbell, a... consultant, and DJ... what is your last name anyway?"

"Cooper."

"DJ Cooper. He's a..."

"Prodigy."

Blue shrugged.

Harry spoke into the silence. "So... what now?"

...


	6. Chapter 6

All other personnel had been banished from the briefing room, and the only ones there were the governing bodies of the Stargate and Atlantis programs, and SG1.

With DJ adding in additional information she had forgotten, in completely inappropriate places, gradually the truth came spilling out of Blue, the two days she'd spent in the company of aliens, running from the Australian government, her first trip through the Stargate and how she had known about the SGC possibly ten minutes before she was approached for the Atlantis position.

Of course they all glossed over Max-being-an-Ancient thing. That would probably be a bit much at this stage, though Blue remembered Dr Jackson staring at Max, brow furrowed, like he knew the man from somewhere, but he just couldn't quite remember where.

However, if she had wanted applause on how she and her friends had saved the Earth from invasion, she was sorely mistaken.

"Do you have any idea how badly you have compromised this very program?" General Landry demanded. "You, Lieutenant, have placed both yourself and your teammates in even more danger! What if you end up encountering one of this Plithss's people on another world? We have been exposed to yet another probable invasion!"

Finally it was too much for her.

"With all due respect, sir, SG1 exposes Earth to probable invasions on a daily basis! If the Australian government had been informed of this clandestine operation, like, _when every other continent in the world was informed, _perhaps I would have known who to call!"

"You're walking a very fine line here, Lieutenant. You'll be very lucky to walk out of here with a job."

"Fire me? Do you seriously expect me to believe that you will let me walk out of here unsupervised with all that I know now?"

"You have quite an attitude on you, Lieutenant."

"I've needed to." She said coldly.

"So she stands up for herself. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

Everyone stared at the door.

"Jack? What the hell-?"

Blue rocketed to her feet, and snapped a salute. "Sir!"

"Sit down." Brigadier General Jack O'Neill waved his hand, before sinking into a vacant seat to Jackson's right. He stretched his hand out across the table. "Nice to meet you, Lieutenant."

Cautiously, Blue shook his hand.

"Thought I would make time to swing round." The General said. He took a sneaky glance at the massive Furling. "Especially after, well, hearing about you."

"News travels fast."

"I am honoured."

Jack's smile faded. "You know," He said quite seriously. "I was beginning to think that we would never meet your people."

"I needed to be sure it would be the right time." The Furling said.

"The right time for what?" He frowned.

"The universe is changing."

"How do you mean?"

"You have done it a great disservice. This existence was once equal. We had our good people. And we had our evils. Those evils are now almost nonexistent. In saving the galaxy, you may also have destroyed it." The Furling said in his polite, neutral way.

"I'm still not following."

"We had programmed it that way, General. The mightier species would maintain a hold on lesser peoples who had a potential for even greater evils than those they served."

"So the Goa'uld and all the others? They were keeping under control the people who might become an even worse threat than they were?" Dr Jackson asked curiously.

"I'm trying to wrap my head around _'we programmed it that way'_." General O'Neill said.

"Yes, Doctor Jackson."

"And we... oh no."

"What?"

"We killed them, Jack. We killed them all. There's nothing out there that is forcing us to maintain contact with other races. We don't know what's going on out there because all our treaties collapsed without a sufficient threat to maintain them."

"And therefore all these lesser species that we had carefully controlled for all these aeons were unleashed. Power vacuums were created in the wake of your destruction of our keepers. War across all dimensions. Hundreds of thousands of species clamouring for the power that your race had discarded upon its triumph. The very universe has begun to bend to preserve as much of itself as it can. Planets are dying."

"What can we do?"Colonel Carter asked.

"You are the Tau'ri of Earth." The Furling said. "You may think of yourself as a lesser race of the galaxy, but if you should speak, the universe will listen."

"And say what?"

* * *

Max and Harry were cruising down the halls of Stargate Command, doing some casual browsing, some covert sticking of the noses into other people's business. After receiving some strange looks from the SGC personnel, Harry inadvertently toned down his raucous laugh and blunted the edge on his harsher country-boy accent.

"Bloody hell, you would think we were the damn aliens." He commented. "Or, well-" He glanced at Max. "You know what I mean."

"Yes, I know."

"Campbell?"

"Yes?"

"Why exactly do you think we're allowed to wander around like this? If I had seen three random blokes appear out of the air, I'd be introducing them to an old friend called Jail Cell."

Max tapped the side of his head and winked. "Jedi mind trick."

Harry blinked. "Very smooth. You must be a riot at parties. Or in women's locker rooms."

"I thought we probably needed to get a handle on these people."

"Through the women's locker room?"

"Would you get a hold of yourself? You're supposed to be married!"

"Not for much longer." Harry confessed. "And I think that this little side trip will probably be the final nail in the coffin."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Some things just aren't meant to be, and-" Max narrowed his eyes. "Have you been acting up?"

"Blimey, you sound like my mum."

"In my time people actually showed some sort of remorse when their marriage ended."

"Your time was ten thousand years ago." Harry pointed out. "On Earth, a marriage is like a business contract which can be re-evaluated every three to five years."

"One day you're going to meet someone and I'm going to remind you of that." Max opened up a door to his left.

"So we're invisible?"

"Just not noticeable." Out of the corner of his eye, Max spotted Harry giving a burly American airman a speculative look. "And as soon as you go out of your way to make an idiot of yourself, the illusion wears off!"

"Spoilsport."

Max found himself in some sort of storage facility, the artefacts inside patiently waiting to be transported somewhere.

"Shouldn't this have been guarded? I should complain to the management."

"There's no sentries because I doubt very much that there is anyone on this planet with the sufficient intelligence to run any of these devices."

Harry looked at him blankly, unimpressed. "Well," Max amended himself. "No one on this planet of sufficient intelligence besides me, of course."

"Of course." Harry echoed. He raised an eyebrow. "So the powers of the higher planes can only be abused by a qualified staffman when rifling through random people's desks?"

"I want to see what these people are about. These people know more that they're saying and I doubt they're as clean cut as they're making out."

"_We're_ hardly as clean cut as we're making out, either." Harry pointed out.

"What are you people doing in here?"

Max and Harry froze, two guilty little boys that had been caught raiding the cookie jar. One of those little science types was standing behind them, brandishing his touch screen like a weapon. He studied both their features closely, filing their appearances away for further reference later.

"Unnoticeable, huh?" Harry hissed.

"Only those of sufficient intelligence are capable of seeing through the illusion." Max muttered.

"You're those Australians that were materialised in the Gate room, weren't you?" The scientist flung the question at them like an accusation.

"Look, mate, we didn't exactly ask for that." Harry said. "I_ was_ in the middle of a meeting with the Prime Minister. How do I explain that I left his absolutely _riveting _cabinet discussion because I was beamed up by the yanks?"

"I'm actually a Canadian."

"I should have known from the accent. The Canadians are to America what the New Zealanders are to Australia." Harry muttered to Max.

"And technically this type of beaming technology doesn't actually 'beam' you up, it breaks you down into atoms and transports you instantaneously to another position, rather like the Stargate-" The scientist suddenly seemed to realise that he had nerded off in front of two strangers that were looking at him like _he _was the one from another planet.

To cover his awkward moment, the officious Canadian scientist stuck out his hand. "Doctor Rodney McKay."

Harry cautiously shook it. "Agent Harry Evans, ASIO. This is my consultant, Doctor Campbell."

"Max." Max introduced himself, smiling faintly. And then the strangest thing happened.

All the sheet-covered devices in the storage room switched themselves on.

Max's smile faded and his eyes widened as Doctor McKay held the computer out in front of him, wordlessly staring at something that was beeping on the screen.

"Heh." Harry said. "Anyway, nice to meet you, Doctor McKay. We really need to get going to – to try and figure out exactly what the hell we're doing here and all that. So, ah, see you around some time." Harry snarled at Max and more or less dragged him out the door.

"See you." The Canadian said automatically, still engrossed in his screen.

* * *

Jack and Daniel were still quizzing the Furling when the door burst open and a bright-eyed Rodney McKay stood there, _I have made a brilliant discovery_ written across his face.

Something in Blue's gut plunged.

"I need to speak with you." He said, basically addressing the whole of Stargate Command but managing to exclude Blue. But she was fine with that. She could find a clear spot on the floor and curl up and die.

"Can't it wait, McKay?"

"No." And something in the urgency of that one word made Colonel Carter whisper something in General Landry's ear. The General rose.

"Dismissed." He stared down at Blue. "Your military career isn't saved yet, Lieutenant."

"Oh, I think it is." General O'Neill said with a grin. "See you bright and early tomorrow morning, Lieutenant Colonel. You've got quite the mess to sort out."

Blue almost fell off her chair.

They slowly filed out of the room, leaving Blue, DJ and the Furling sitting at the long table.

"I'm dead. I'm well and truly dead." She said numbly.

McKay was still a bubble of energy, waltzing around the room with his computer.

"McKay?" Sam asked.

"Ten minutes ago I found the Lieutenant's two boyfriends, Evans and Campbell scoping out the storeroom that's still holding some minor artefacts we brought back from Atlantis awaiting shipment to Area 51."

"What were they doing?" Sam asked. "How did they get in?"

"I don't know on both accounts." Rodney admitted unabashedly. "But, check this out-"

He handed the computer to Sam, bearing the readings he had picked up in the storeroom. "Is this for real?" She asked.

"Absolutely 100 percent."

"What are you two eggheads babbling about?"

Both of the scientists looked up.

"I had been doing a final cataloguing of the items, and what this is the energy readouts for the storeroom. You see, they both introduced themselves to me, and as soon as this guy, this _Max _said his name, everything in the room switched on."

"It could just mean he has the activation gene." John Sheppard said.

"No, it couldn't. Because every article in that room is DNA locked." Rodney said. "Programmed to respond only to the owner."

"Sort of like voice programming?"

"Perhaps." McKay replied. "So on that idea, I decided to cross reference the Ancient archives to see if anyone by the name of Max lived in Atlantis before it was evacuated to Earth."

"Max? That's a little nondescript for an Ancient, isn't it?" Cameron Mitchell said dubiously.

"Yes, so I searched for a name that _contained _the word Max. And this is what I found." Setting the computer down, McKay pulled out a small holographic projector out of his pocket and set it up on the desk.

The hologram opened.

Standing on the floor in front of them dressed in his ceremonial robes of state, his hair a little shorter, the figure a little more professional and clean cut, was a man who was identical to the companion of Jones.

"Oh my God." Sam gasped. Daniel adjusted his glasses.

"I _knew _I'd seen him somewhere before."

"Maxel Delwynn." McKay said. "It would appear that the Ancients once shortened their names like we do."

"Who is this guy?" Jack asked.

"_This guy _was a very respected scientist on Atlantis. He designed the city's computer core-"

"D'you think that means he could fix the city?" John interrupted. "Because that would be handy."

"Anyway, I was _saying,_ this guy, this Maxel, he..."

"Oh, just say it."

"He was the one that discovered Ascension and perfected it." McKay grinned, getting carried away with his own eagerness. "He _enabled _the Ascended to be. They even christened him with his own title. The Architect of Ascension."

Everyone in the room just looked at him. "If that's so," General Landry said carefully. "Shouldn't he be Ascended? Why is he here?"

"Well, we _could_ ask him." Jack said slowly. "And then we _could _ask if he'd mind giving us a hand with this little interdimensional war thingie. It's worth a try, right?"


	7. Chapter 7

Looking at the meals currently on the offering in the canteen, Blue wrinkled her nose and asked for a coffee instead. Sipping, she turned to leave the line and find a table where she could sit and glare menacingly at strangers.

"Good morning."

Blue jumped, squeezing the foam cup. Coffee splashed over her fingers. Hot coffee.

"Jesus Christ!" She cursed on reflex, shaking her hand.

"You may call me Your Grace."

She glared at Rodney McKay, who was standing beside her with his hands clasped behind his back. Blue ground her teeth, biting off her first impulse to abuse him for indirectly burning her fingers. "What can I do for you, Doctor McKay?"

"Well, I had been considering that since you had been elevated to the vaulted and somewhat exclusive fraternity that is Colonel, I thought I would come by and introduce myself."

"I already have been made privy to your presence, doctor."

"Ah, the dry wit. Yes, you will fit in very nicely." The doctor nodded somewhat briskly, and trailed along behind as Blue headed for an empty table. Military men fell back before her, seeing that McKay had latched onto her and was not throwing his barbed comments their way for the time being.

Blue felt terribly strange sipping what was left of her coffee, Doctor McKay sitting opposite her with his chin resting on his steepled fingers, watching her levelly like he could read her mind if he stared at her hard enough and avoid that messy business of actually having to _talk _to her. "So." He finally began.

"So."

"I've got some questions for you."

"I thought you might." She sighed, setting her cup aside.

"You aren't surprised. You knew." There was no doubt about what he was talking about.

"Yes. He told me."

For a fraction of a second he actually looked surprised. And then he was Rodney McKay again. "And you didn't think it was worth mentioning that to anyone?"

"Why?" Blue said impatiently. "I'm a career soldier, and I've been in Atlantis for as long as you have. I've seen what this place does to a lone alien when they're trying to figure out how he works or what secrets he may know."

McKay opened his mouth to protest, but reluctantly had to concede that she was correct. He'd never say that, though. "Why are you even talking to me about this?" She asked. "Lose a bet?"

He folded his arms. "Command decreed I was the more qualified to talk to you about this Maxel Delwynn as I am the more familiar with the Ancient technology of Atlantis."

"Lucky you. Maxel del-what?"

"Your pal. Max."

"Oh." She looked at the table. "If you're thinking I'm going to give you all some big revelations about the Ancients, you're wrong."

"Really?"

"Max never speaks much about Ancients or ascension stuff. There's a lot of bad blood."

"How do you mean?"

Blue gave him an unnervingly blank stare. "Anubis? Ori? Ringing any bells with you?" She narrowed her eyes. "It's no use asking me to ask him to give you any of the Ancient's technology, anyway." She said.

"Why's that?"

"Because of what Ascension eventually did to the universe, the Ascended won't let him."

Blue sat back and let McKay digest that bit of information. He was silent for the longest she had seen him. "Is he Ascended?" He finally asked carefully.

"No." Blue looked peered at the dregs of her coffee, and swirled them around the cup. "He's sort of... stuck here."

There was an awkward silence as the soldier and the scientist avoided looking at each other directly.

"There's something else,"

"I kind of thought so."

"We can't hope to win a war on the magnitude the Commander of the Furlings was talking about." McKay said. "So the Generals have taken the Furling's suggestion to lean on our galactic reputation and try to broker some sort of alliance between the warring races."

"And what has this got to do with Max?" She asked suspiciously.

"Ah, the government has conferred and they'd like your – friend to accompany the SGC's mediating team to the edge of the universe."

"Accompany?"

"Well, it's more of a spearheading operation. He's kind of an ace in the hole, if you will."

"He's not a performing monkey."

"No. He's the last of a very technologically advanced race which is responsible for our own existence and has pioneered Ascension, which every species we have encountered aspires too. Can you begin to understand the advantage that would bring us in our negotiations?"

"I can. I'm not sure he would."

"Colonel Jones, I quite clearly heard you say that the Ascended would stop him from giving anyone information on ascension or Ancient technology. Not on using his particular celebrity in a possibly volatile situation to broker peace."

"Bloody hell, Laura was right. You _are_ slippery for a geek."

"Laura?" He immediately looked sour. "Laura _Cadman_?"

"How many other Lauras do you know?" She raised an eyebrow. "She's my roommate. It's easier to split the rent considering we're hardly ever there."

"Ah." He stood, and pushed his chair back in neatly under the table. "Can you at least approach your friend with the idea? Try to impress on him the seriousness of the situation, and that we need his decision as soon as possible."

With one last awkward half-wave, he left the canteen into the bowels of Stargate Command.

Blue sighed. It was time to save the universe again.

Since none of the Atlantis teams had officially resumed duty, Blue eventually managed to leave the office, carting along several armloads of paperwork that had managed to pile up while she was in Atlantis.

Laura Cadman was already home. Blue had met her during the battle of Atlantis, and that night they shared a bar of chocolate and talked about the respective craziness that brought each of them there.

Even her crazy hours on board the _Daedalus _were more predictable than Blue's life. She unlocked the door. The smell of pizza and beer hung faintly in the air. Once, on Earth, when Laura had still been dating that doctor, she'd forced Blue to join her in a complete overhaul of their respective diets. Of course, the very moment both of them set foot on Atlantis once more, the carrots and celery were out the window and it was back to living on energy drinks and microwave dinners.

_Dr Beckett._ Blue liked him. Everyone liked him. His blue canvas jacket was still hanging behind the door from the very last dinner he had shared with Laura in the apartment. Several times Blue had looked at it and considered sending it back to his family, but somehow she couldn't bear to touch it.

They'd buried too many friends in the last five years and bit by bit, she felt herself turning to stone, wondering when her time would be up.

_You're a bloody cheerful bugger, aren't you, Jones?_

"Are you awake?"

"No." Came a muffled voice from down the corridor. Blue smiled, dumping the file of papers on the coffee table. Casting a look at her inviting-looking armchair in front of the TV, she sighed and pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket. Scrolling through her address book, she scanned the names. Her finger hovered over the dialling button when she got to her mother's number, but she rung the number merely entered as _M._

_OO7 calling._

Max, Harry and DJ were being put up in Stargate Command, so Blue had no idea whether he'd be getting reception, but the rest of him was so outlandish she wouldn't have been surprised. As the line began to ring, she stepped back out into the chilly night, the wind waiting to steal her words away.

"_Hello?"_

"Max."

"_Oh, it's you."_

"Don't sound so overjoyed." Blue grinned, though he couldn't see her. "How's the room?"

"_Very homey. I especially like how the guards who walk by every ten minutes and have a look inside to make sure I haven't dematerialised."_

"Yes, sorry about that. They sort of figured out who you were on their own." She said uncomfortably.

"_I expect that it would have come out sooner or later." _He hesitated.

"Doctor McKay thinks you might be the last hope for the universe."

Max didn't answer straight away. _"Somehow that doesn't inspire me with confidence."_

"Why do you have to be so cynical about everything?"

He laughed dryly. _"If you'd seen some of the things I've seen..."_

"The bottom line is that I haven't. Either you can help us now or I'll sort out something so you can disappear, but there is _no more room _for you to sit around being all angst-y emo. Pull yourself together already."

"_I think, in over ten thousand years, you would have to be the first to tell me that."_

"So?"

Max sighed, the sound coming out as a wave of static over the line. _"I think I'm a little over the hill now to be saving the universe. Those days are far behind me."_

"Oh, right, because it must be such a pain in the ass to be stuck at thirty five for the rest of time." Grey hairs and sagging were starting to become one of her concerns, whereas a few years ago she couldn't have cared less. "You know, Max, any other time I could actually give a crap. You might live past the universe self-destructing, you might not. I don't think you'll care either way. But you know, _I'm _not quite tired of living yet. I'm nearly forty, and I've got a date. Do you have any idea how rare that is?

"Come on, Max. You're going to live forever. Might as well enjoy the ride."

He was quiet for a long moment, and then he laughed. _"See you at work tomorrow."_ He said, and hung up, leaving Blue standing in the pitiful overgrown garden staring at the dead phone in her hand. He had hardly been off the phone for a minute when it began to buzz. Blue looked down at the screen. Any other time her stomach would have done a funny little flip like it used to do when she was back in high school, but right now she was too tired.

She answered the call.

"This is strike one, Major Lorne."

"_I was worried."_ Could be classified as sweet, I guess._ "You didn't look too good when you left work."_

"You know, shotgun promotion, save the galaxy, imminent destruction, and try to convince a depressed alien that he's the last hope for the universe. I feel like I'm in a Douglas Adams book."

"_You were promoted? Congratulations."_

"I now outrank you, so be careful or I'll report you for improper conduct."

"_Do you want to talk?"_

And, surprisingly, she found she did.

* * *

She couldn't feel any movement underneath her feet, but an uncomfortable feeling still formed in her throat as she realised that she _was _indeed moving and she _should _be able to feel... something.

She'd almost always felt like she shouldn't have been there, and especially now the feeling had grown exponentially. Blue found she really wasn't prepared to be a Colonel; people treated her differently. Those that were once her peers aside from Laura, would not speak to her in a social setting and she was generally avoided by those on board.

Or perhaps it was just because that McKay had decided to hang around her, plying her with questions about Max in particular. It was worse after Blue had seen the boys; Harry was a spy and was more likely to turn the questions back on the doctor, DJ was a student and his mind was a twisty maze of hypothetical situations which he relied on under the Canadian's scrutiny, and Max just wouldn't answer if he didn't like the question.

McKay wanted to squeeze her, put her under so much pressure that she would let something slip. What he forgot was that she was a soldier. She was used to being under pressure.

_But he _was _getting kind of annoying._

"I _told _you, and I'll _tell _you and I'll _keep _telling you. Max did not impart any intergalactic knowledge to me. I don't think he _ever _would."

"Oh? And why do you think that?"

"Well, I remember reading a report somewhere which suggested the alliance of Four Races did not think we had evolved enough to cope with the sensory overload. Also, there's the fact that he thinks I talk too much."

She could see by the way McKay's eyes were darting back and forth that he was thinking of a witty reply. Blue looked down at the touch screen she held in her hands. On the screen, as it had displayed almost continuously since they had left Earth, was the progress of the Daedalus to this new galaxy that the Commander had directed the ship to. Colonel Carter and her people had almost broken into conniptions when their scanners had picked up the galaxy and roughly charted the age of it.

It was 17 billion years old, well beyond the time of the Big Bang. Even Blue's head had been left spinning. _Is it true? Are the Furlings really the people left over from the last Universe? _

And now they were going there. Actually going there. And Blue would be with the Earth delegation that consisted of herself, Max, the Furling, Colonel Carter, Doctor Jackson, General O'Neill and Teal'c.

She never though anything would terrify her more than the Goa'uld. More than the Replicators. More than the Ori or the Wraith, but this, the prospect of unifying the whole universe or dying horribly scared the crap out of her.

She didn't even really know what she was supposed to be doing here, aside from hanging on to Max's coattails and trying not to make an idiot of herself.

Static buzzed in her ear, and Blue activated her headset.

"Hi, Max." She said.

"_I need you."_

"Woah, Max, you're a nice guy and all-"

"_No, seriously. I need you."_

"On way." Blue turned to McKay, who was looking wistful. "Well, this has been interesting." She clasped her hands in front of her. "But I've got a disaster to attend to."

_Thank God._

"Disaster."

"My outer space friend is having a crisis of conscience. And when Max gets upset, things get messy." Blue said. "You're welcome to join in if you feel like some heart to heart."

McKay blinked at her, trying to ascertain whether she was joking or not. "I'm _sure _they could use your expertise on the bridge." Blue inwardly winced, hoping she wouldn't go to hell.

"Perhaps you're right." The doctor agreed, telling by her expression that she did not want any company with this personal call. And he knew from experience that trying to waylay anyone with some kind of military background was just asking for trouble.

Several minutes later, Blue knocked against Max's door, which whooshed open. He had been waiting for her.

Inside was as freakishly neat as Blue had expected. The bed didn't even look slept in. But then again, for all Blue really knew, Max slept standing on his head in the cupboard. "Max?"

"Close the door." She did as he asked and stepped into the room. Unlike the rest of the crew, there were no memories festooning the walls, no little mementos scattered around the room. Max must have had a very lonely life.

"What did you want?" She asked aloud to the seemingly empty room. "Like, not that I'm complaining. You saved me from _Q&A with McKay_."

He muttered something too low for her to hear.

"What?"

"Don't you _dare_ laugh," He warned.

"Promise." She said, grinning. To be on the safe side, she crossed her fingers behind her back.

Max stepped from the shadows.

"What the _hell _are you wearing?"

"I'll have you know that this was the height of fashion in Atlantis for a thousand years." He said, affronted.

He'd cut his hair back and had shaved, exposing the hard angles of his face. It rather suited him, the robe he was wearing, with its long embroidered sleeves and sash across one shoulder. Blue's smirk faded. Whereas she couldn't before, now she could _see_ the man that had changed the universe for the best. And the worst.

And he was absolutely terrifying.

Max looked at her blank expression, eyebrows raised. "Are you alright?"

"Okie dokie." Blue swallowed. "That's a new look for you."

"Or a very old one." Max laughed dryly. "Daniel though we might try for something a little imposing on our arrival."

_Of _course_ Max and Dr Jackson would be on first name terms._

Blue shook her head. "Why am I even here, Max?"

Max folded his arms. "Well, I just thought I'd get your opinion, and-"

"Not that, _here_. Going into hostile territory, with _no _idea what I'm supposed to do. I'm not a negotiator; I'd be standing around holding the coats." She began to pace, head down. "Why am I even here?"

"Because you're supposed to be here."

"What does that even _mean_?"

Max shrugged, smiling apologetically. "I have absolutely no idea."


	8. Chapter 8

Blue was aware of General O'Neill in the chair, his hand on the communicator.

"This is the Earth ship, Daedalus, requesting clearance for Elaurca space." He said. "I repeat, this is General Jack O'Neill of the Earth ship Daedalus requesting clearance for Elaurca space."

Static crackled over the airwaves. Blue exchanged a quick glance with Max.

"_Welcome to Elaurca, General O'Neill. Please approach with caution. Stray gas fissures may interfere with your guidance systems." _A scratchy voice finally answered their hail. Strange clicking noises could be heard as the person spoke. _"I am Designated One-Two-Four, leader of the Spherekin expedition. Forgive me for not answering you sooner. I required a moment to upgrade to your language. May we meet face to face on the surface."_

"It's good to hear from you. We're beginning our descent."

"_We shall prepare for you."_

O'Neill glanced sideways at Max. "Who are the Spherekin again?"

"The Spherekin hold the greatest sway at this conference." The Commander of the Furlings said, gripping an old, knobbly staff. "They are currently the strongest power in this quadrant and this gathering would not even be taking place if not for the discretion on their behalf."

"Especially after they heard we were coming?"

"That is correct."

Blue stood beside Max in his ceremonial robes. Dr Jackson had decided that they should all wear their SGC uniforms to present a unified front, and enable the Furling and Max to seem more imposing.

The journey to the surface of the planet was relatively uneventful. The mediating team were ringed down to the complex on the surface of the planet on a receiver point that had been set up especially for their use, which was rather kind of them to do considering that these warring races were a hair's breadth from destroying the universe.

The corridor they ringed into was long and bland. To either side of them, long windows took the place of walls, leaving the inhabitants to look out onto the bleakness of the planet. Outside the surface looked barely liveable, barren and scarred as if a bomb had hit it. Someone else had negotiated on this planet once before, and it didn't look like it worked out very well at all.

"I thought there was supposed to be a welcoming committee." General O'Neill muttered.

Max watched as each one of them reached for weapons that weren't there.

"What the-?"

"This is a safe zone, General." Max said. "No weapons or weapons systems are allowed once past the gas fissures."

"Great. You didn't think to mention this before, did you?"

"I did. Right after you assured me that you'd done this kind of thing before." Max frowned, brow creased with irritation.

"The first thing you should learn, Max," Dr Jackson slapped him familiarly on the shoulder. "Is that Jack tends to exaggerate a bit."

"That particular conference... could have gone better." O'Neill conceded.

"I think there's a door down there a bit." Carter said.

"I believe we should show ourselves in." Teal'c observed. "There seems little reason to remain here."

The doors hissed open, and the seven of them found themselves staring out onto such a gathering of aliens that none of them had ever seen before on their travels. While most galaxies they had seen had been inhabited by humanoid races courtesy of the Goa'uld and the Ancient seeding programs, apparently neither of those races had managed to get this far out yet.

In fact, as Blue looked around the complex, the first thing that sprung to mind was the cantina scene from _Star Wars._

O'Neill's smile had become rather fixed on his face and his expression hardly flickered at all as a little creature perhaps up to his waist hurriedly approached them from across the room. He was wearing a shimmering uniform of some sort, and his face had more than a passing resemblance to an insect, his massive pincers quivering as he apologised to them profusely in the same metallic clicking voice that they had heard over the comm.

Carter's expression was slowly turning to one of horror, and her face had gone ghastly white.

"I'm guessing you're Designated One-Two-Four." O'Neill said, stepping forward to shake the creature's hand.

The little alien stared at Jack's hand for a moment, puzzled, before finally reaching out to shake it with his own. "Ah, yes. A peculiarity of your people, as I have heard. I am One-Two-Four." The little alien said in that funny voice of his. "Once again I must beg your forgiveness. The people of the Tau'ri should not be affronted so lightly."

"That's alright. We're used to being affronted... lightly."

Another of the creatures scuttled forward to stare up at them boldly. Unlike Designated One-Two-Four, this one apparently did not feel the need to apologise for not meeting them at the rings.

"This is my associate." One-Two-Four said. "Designated Five-Seven-Three."

Five-Seven-Three clicked his pincers. "These are the people of the Tau'ri." It was not a question.

"I'm Dr Daniel Jackson." Jackson leapt forward enthusiastically. "This is General Jack O'Neill, Lieutenant Colonel Clementine Jones, Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, Teal'c of the free Jaffa nation, the Commander of the Furling fleet, and Maxel Delwynn of the Lost City of Atlantis."

Jackson's proffered hand was ignored as all sound petered off in the complex. Looking awkward, Daniel flexed his fingers and tucked his hand behind his head. Blue realised that everyone present was staring at Max, and it reminded her strongly of a nightmare she used to have in high school.

To his credit, Max held firm, head held high, showing no hint of whatever he must have been feeling.

"The Architect." Five-Seven-Three said. His voice was even higher than One-Two-Four's, and the metallic click was even more pronounced. Carter edged herself into O'Neill's shadow. Five-Seven-Three stared up at Max for a moment longer before making a harrumphing noise and wandering off into the midst of the other alien delegates. One-Two-Four looked at Max apologetically, before scurrying off after his companion.

Jack turned to Sam Carter as Blue exchanged glances with Max. "What is your problem, Colonel?" He demanded.

"Can't you _see_?" Carter stared at him incredulously. "Sir, they're Replicators!"

The bottom dropped out of Blue's stomach. "Replicators?"

Everybody stared at Carter incredulously, except Teal'c who simply rose an eyebrow, utterly unsurprised by this turn of events. But before Jack could utter a single vowel, the other delegates picked that moment to convene on them. Blue heard the word _Tau'ri _being repeated again and again as countless ambassadors introduced themselves to O'Neill, the obvious leader of the group.

Blue found herself stuck between Dr Jackson and Max. The Furling Commander had wandered off, mingling in the crowd of delegates.

Managing to inch to the farthest boundaries of the room, Jackson offered Blue his hand. "We've met before, but not on any personal level." He said. "Call me Daniel."

"Daniel." Blue shook his hand. One-Two-Four was right; it was a rather unusual custom when one thought about it. "I'm Blue."

"I thought-"

"I've been Blue since primary school." She puffed a strand of red hair out of her eyes. "It's an Australian thing." Behind her, Max was perfectly still, his face a perfect picture of concentration. "Someone's Spidey sense is tingling." She observed.

"Something's wrong here." He said gravely. He turned his eyes back to Daniel and Blue, and suddenly they were sly and cheeky. "Want to figure out why?"

It only took Blue a fraction of a second to decide. "Lead the way." She said.

Daniel cast one last look at Jack, Sam and Teal'c before quickly following as well.

Disguised in the crowd, Max pulled his robes over his head. Underneath he was wearing that old sweater and the battered jeans he had been in when she had met him in the construction site, oh so long ago. He balled the robe up in his hands and tucked it behind a small upright computer terminal that was flashing messages in a language she could not hope to understand.

One-Two-Four and Five-Seven-Three were standing in the hallway, arguing. Blue frowned. Not since the human-form Replicators had she seen one with the capacity to compute emotions such as this.

What was particularly strange was that these Replicators had apparently evolved up until a point, and then stopped.

"As incompatible as they may seem, I still believe it is a mistake to bring the Tau'ri to even the edge of our empire." Five-Seven-Three said. "Their capacity for contradiction makes them a perilous ally."

"I know you refuse to compute a solution beyond the Mother, but Mother created us to use the resources at our disposal. Would we rebuke the gift She gave us?"

"The Tau'ri were responsible for the erasure of our kin in the west."

"The ones in the west were merely kin through manufacture." One-Two-Four said calmly. "The Tau'ri may be the key."

Blue exchanged a curious look with Daniel, who nodded. He cleared his throat, alerting the Spherekin to their presence, and stepped forward. "What are the Tau'ri key to?" He asked casually, his hands open and held away from his sides to try and show that he was harmless to them.

"None of your concern." Five-Seven-Three said.

"If you want us to do something for you guys, shouldn't we get to know each other first?" Blue asked casually. "Man to Replicator."

"Do _not _call us that!" The creature snapped at her. "We are not the ones known as Replicator! We are the Spherekin!"

"Forgive me for saying that the similarities are uncanny." She stared calmly into those sharp pincers.

"While it was once true that we were once kin to those you call the Replicators," One-Two-Four said. "That was long before our processors were touched by the Sphere."

Both the Spherekin snapped to attention at the name before relaxing once more.

"We do not need to explain ourselves to these Tau'ri!"

"What's the Sphere?" Daniel asked curiously.

One-Two-Four blinked large, buglike eyes. "She is the Mother." He explained. "During a great space battle when we were all known as Replicator, our ship was damaged and separated from the nest. The Mother took pity on us and realigned our memory banks."

"What?"

"The Sphere rewrote their souls." Max said quietly. He looked caught between moral dilemmas.

Blue looked away, back to One-Two-Four. "What are the Tau'ri the key to?" She echoed Daniel's earlier question.

The Spherekin exchanged glances, before the hostile Five-Seven-Three looked up at them both. "The key to ending this war."

Blue frowned. "Isn't that what we're here for anyway?"

"Not_ this _war, foolish female. The key to defeating the Sphere."

"But I thought you were loyal to her." Daniel pointed out.

"We were – are, but of recent battles of Ori and Goa'uld and Wraith, Her programming was damaged. She has become a vengeful God." One-Two-Four stated. "For all our sakes, She must be decommissioned before she destroys the universe."

"Destroys the-? Has this Sphere got anything to do with space bending in on itself?"

The Spherekin's look was all Blue needed, and she activated the mic on her ear.

"General O'Neill, I'll need to speak to you immediately concerning the Replicator people." She said briskly.

His reply was instantaneous. _"Copy that, Colonel."_

They were in one of the rooms facing out onto the destruction of the planet. The Furling Commander seemed to have left them to their own devices, and not for the first time Blue had to wonder which side he was on.

_Why can't I just have one ordinary day at work?_

"The Sphere is our mother. She remade us, better than we were." One-Two-Four said. "I myself was one of the first she converted."

"Congrats." General O'Neill said. "What can you tell us about the Sphere?"

"It was-" One-Two-Four did a calculation in his head. "Perhaps over five Earth years ago. For unknown reasons, Mother began to malfunction, and corrupted those closest to Her, causing their decommission. None can approach her without their base files being altered."

Blue froze. The timing was a coincidence, she told herself. Just a terrible coincidence that it coincided with the departure of the Atlantis expedition from the SGC. But another nasty little voice spoke up in the back of her mind._ Over five years ago, Max stepped through the Stargate for the first time in centuries!_

"So you can't shut her down?" Carter asked.

"Affirmative. Should any of my retainers approach Mother, we would risk the peace and prosperity she has brokered for our people."

"Call me stupid, but an intergalactic war and bending the universe into a pretzel is hardly what I call peace and prosperity." O'Neill said.

"Of course." Daniel suddenly exclaimed. "We're all here because of you. You hold the balance of power in this quadrant. And if the Sphere _does _go into meltdown, the other races will assume it is a hostile action and the universe _will _be on the brink of war." He looked at Carter and O'Neill, who only moments before had been discussing how they could eradicate this strain of Replicators from the universe, and glanced at Blue.

"What the Furling told you. It was what _would _happen if we didn't come. The war hasn't started yet."

One-Two-Four nodded. "But we ourselves cannot dismantle the Sphere. To do that, we require someone who is not machinekind, and does not desire our empire for themselves."

Everything weighed upon the next words of Jack O'Neill. The General looked pensive, and rubbed a hand across his chin.

"Carter and I'll stay here." He said with a note of finality. "To try and keep heads cool this end in case things take a turn for the worst. Jones, take Daniel and Teal'c and that little funny guy over there back to the Daedalus and choose your team. You're leaving for this Sphere ASAP."

He gave Max a funny look. "And I'm sure you'll do whatever you want to do."

_Like the Ancients normally do._


	9. Chapter 9

Blue picked her team from the elite on board the _Daedalus_ and pilfered people from several other offworld teams while she was at it. In the end, after a quick conference with Daniel and Harry, the team that was to follow Five-Seven-Three's coordinates to decommission the Sphere consisted of Blue, Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, Major Lorne, Five-Seven-Three, and Lieutenant Laura Cadman in all her explosive glory. And in case they encountered any serious resistance, the airmen from Evan's team and the Marines from her own would be tagging along behind to secure the Stargate that the Spherekin assured them was there.

And last but not least, even though it left a sour taste in her mouth when she admitted it to him, she needed the officious Doctor Rodney McKay.

The scientist's triumphant smirk lasted for a whole three seconds before the specifics of the mission were outlined to the team and he adopted an expression of pure panic.

It was not possible for the Daedalus to leave the planet's airspace with General O'Neill, Colonel Carter and Max still on the surface, and Blue did not think it would have been a wise idea anyway, so she and Dr Jackson decided that the team should be ringed down to the surface in the basic vicinity of the Elaucra Stargate. Whatever radiation levels there had been on the planet when it suffered the calamity that wiped out its native population had now mostly subsided. Mostly.

One-Two-Four had assured them that all the alien delegates would be removed from that area so they could depart without being seen.

The surface of the planet was exactly as it seemed. Blue and her team crunched over dried lava lakes, gas masks on as a precaution as every so often one of the gas fissures would explode, saturating them all in a rancid yellow cloud that smelled of greasy food. No one really spoke, but every so often McKay would look down at a beeping device he was holding and then back up as Blue as if to say _If we all turn into mutant man-squids, it's all your fault._

"I cannot come with you through the Stargate." Five-Seven-Three said. "The Mother would rewrite my base programs. I cannot risk being corrupted and betraying the location of this planet to Her while all the delegates are still present."

"Would she attack you?"

"Perhaps. You must be aware that the Sphere will be guarded closely by those that were once my brethren. They will protect Her to their final synapse, and I believe that she has reverted them back to their primal states."

"That does not sound good." Daniel said.

"Why did you call the conference on this planet?" Blue asked suddenly. "I can think of a few places that would have been nicer, and that's just off the top of my head." He voice was muffled behind the mask.

"Because Elaurca is the only completely neutral planet in this system, Colonel." Five-Seven-Three answered.

"And I'm sure the strangely absent inhabitants of the planet would agree with you." Major Lorne said dryly.

The answering comment he received served to strongly remind them all that no matter what they seemed, the Spherekin were still the bastard cousins of the Replicators.

"A planet can only be completely neutral when there is not one mind remaining to form an opinion." The Spherekin explained with a cold logic. Major Lorne's eyes were icy behind the mask.

"What _did _happen to the native inhabitants?" Daniel asked, full of academic curiosity.

Five-Seven-Three shrugged. "Gone."

"Where to?"

"Evolved." The little android answered. "They used up this planet and left for the stars. We do not possess any data since before the Dark Age, so what befell them is not known to us."

"What's the Dark Age?" Daniel spoke up again. Five-Seven-Three goggled at him.

"Did you not have a Dark Age on your planet?" He asked incredulously.

"What?"

"What I believe our little robotic friend is implying is that the Dark Age is the time of the uneducated. The beginning." McKay said. "Where few records were kept as civilisation was still attempting to find its feet. Even the most advanced race has to start somewhere." He shook his head. "But before the Dark Age? Before the universe? That's a physical impossibility."

"Why?" Blue asked.

"Because Rodney sez so." Lieutenant Cadman said, causing smiles all round.

"Because it's impossible! How can something exist when there's nothing to exist _in_?"

"The Furling Commander said that before this universe existed, there were others before it." Blue said idly.

"Now that's an even more laughable notion." McKay scoffed.

"When I was very young on Chulak, there were tales of races that had existed beyond the universe." Teal'c said. "In the old stories, they were known as the Eyeless Ones."

"Why didn't you mention that before?" Daniel looked at him.

"I did not see it as relevant before, Daniel Jackson."

She could see it now, straddling the horizon, towering over the ruins of the great civilisation that had been much more advanced than her own. The Stargate, the only thing that had survived the destruction that had led to the abandonment of the planet.

"Teal'c?"

"Yes, Colonel Jones?"

"Would you mind telling me the old stories? The ones with the Eyeless Ones?"

Daniel began to dial the Gate. Blue kept one eye one him and one on the impassive Teal'c. The towering alien looked at her before a moment longer.

"There is not much to tell, Colonel Jones." He said. "They were stories for children about people who had greater power than themselves, greater power than the Goa'uld. I now believe that the storytellers had been carefully sowing the seeds for rebellion against the Goa'uld for many generations before the Tau'ri came to Chulak. It was said that the Eyeless Ones could walk between the dimensions and tie time in knots. They were fearsome and cunning warriors that could not be bested."

The Stargate leapt into life behind her. "What happened to them?"

"They were destroyed."

"By what?"

"The tales would always end before the heroes died." He replied. "As is the way of all good stories."

"There's always something bigger and meaner." Rodney said plaintively. "Why is there always something bigger and meaner?"

"Hey," Lieutenant Cadman cut in. "We don't know they're the bad guys. Do we? Are they the bad guys?"

"Depends on your perspective." Major Lorne said. "One man's hero is another man's war criminal."

"Indeed."

The conversation had leapt away from her. Daniel was leaning against the dialling device, glasses slipping down his nose and a _whenever you're ready _look on his face."Guys." Blue said firmly. "We're here to shut down the Sphere. We can theorise to see if these people really exist after we've done our job."

"Remind me what our job is, again?" McKay asked with a hint of his old venom.

Blue threw him a devil-may-care grin, which the doctor almost unconsciously returned with one of his own.

"To save the universe."

The other side was dim, but they could all still see. Around them, machinery flashed in random tattoos and would spark and hiss dramatically at them. "Secure the area." Major Lorne said firmly, casting Blue an unreadable look before joining the team in assembling a perimeter.

"Air seems breathable." McKay said, before setting the device back into one of his vest pockets. Blue ripped off the mask.

"Alright, people." She said. "Lieutenant Peters, you and your men maintain the perimeter at the Gate. Stay in radio contact. Lieutenant Cadman, you're up front. Blow anything out of our way. Major Lorne, you and your men come up the rear, keep us shadowed. McKay, you're up the front with me, Jackson and Teal'c. Remember, we're gonna go in and get this done fast, 'cause God knows we all have better things we could be doing with our time."

There was a chorus of _yes' ma'am_, and even Rodney grudgingly moved into position.

They had gated inside some sort of complex. Blue looked around as the blue light of the Gate faded away, and fleetingly hoped that the building wasn't about to fall down around their ears. She could hear mechanical squeaking and clicking, and knew without a doubt what Five-Seven-Three had meant about a 'primal state'.

"According to Five-Seven-Three, we should be able to follow this corridor to the central control tower." Blue said.

"Should?" Daniel asked.

"It's the best I can do, Jackson." She signalled to Major Lorne and his airmen. "Teal'c, on point with Cadman."

Lieutenant Cadman stepped out into the hall first, P90 held loosely against her shoulder, fully prepared to fire on a moment's notice. The Jaffa moved into the corridor behind her with a grace and silence that should not have been possible for such a large man, Daniel and Blue shadowing him. McKay sandwiched between them and unable to move back because of Lorne's advancing airmen. Blue's face was set into a hard mask. But beneath the determination, there was one rogue thought that she could not seem to quash. It was the thought, the indecisiveness a leader wrests with every day.

_I hope I don't get anyone killed today._

"Blow it."

Cadman had her ear close to the door. "Sounds like a hell of a lot more behind here. I blow the door, and they're going to come rushing in here to protect the Sphere."

"Teal'c has the Disruptor. We need to get in so McKay can shut down the computer." Blue said. "Blow the door, Lieutenant."

Her roommate looked at her a moment longer before turning back to the problem at hand. "Yes, Colonel."

"Be prepared to fire on Cadman's mark." Blue tucked her own P90 into her shoulder, and behind her she was aware of the rest of the team dropping unconsciously into position.

The door blew.

The expected onslaught of the primal Replicators did not take place, even though they were milling all around them. Blue cautiously followed Teal'c into the control room.

The little robots paused to stare at them as they passed, pinchers quivering and rearing up on their hind legs as if preparing to strike.

But they didn't.

"Why aren't they moving?" McKay asked.

"Let's take advantage of it while we can." Major Lorne said. "Is that it?" He pointed to a gigantic construction before them, tiled with computer screens each flashing words in an alien language that seemed vaguely familiar.

Doctor McKay stepped forward, pressing his hands flat against the terminal. "It doesn't look so bad," He said, with a sense of relief. "I should be able to-"

"Ah, ma'am?"

Lieutenant Cadman pointed straight up.

"Oh my."

Suspended from the vaulted ceiling in a harness of wires, cables, and strangely fluid vessels, was-

"It's a _brain_."

Even Teal'c looked surprised, if only for a moment. It was perhaps slightly larger than a human brain, and flexed in and out almost as if it were breathing. She stared at it a moment longer before Rodney glanced at Blue, and she gave a tiny answering nod. The doctor turned back to the computer terminal.

"This language seems to be a very primitive form of Ancient." He said. "It shouldn't take me too long to translate, probably even shorter if Doctor Jackson lends a hand. Then I should be able to follow the circuits back to decommission the Sphere."

"Decommission the Sphere?"

"Jackson," Blue said warningly. Daniel looked at her over the rims of his glasses. "Let Doctor McKay do his job."

"We were sent here to turn off a computer." He said. "Not unplug someone's brain."

"So what's your point?" She asked impatiently. He stared at her, seemingly shocked that she wasn't getting it.

"It's a sentient being. Do we have the right to destroy a living thing who has no way to defend itself?"

"You didn't think that way when it came to killing Goa'uld in their natural state." Blue said coldly. A flash of steel emerged in Daniel's eyes.

"We don't even know what we're dealing with here." He argued back. "The Spherekin lied to us. If Sam were here-"

"Colonel Carter isn't here." Blue said flatly. "Instead you're stuck with me. And I say, _Rodney, shut that thing off now_."

"Colonel Jones-"

"Doctor Jackson, this thing is causing space and dimensions to tie themselves in knots. Which means at any time we could blink out of existence. I wish we had more time, to figure out this thing's purpose, but the bottom line is that we don't."

He stared at her a moment longer before turning away.

"McKay." Blue ignored him. "Any idea what's the deal with the Spherekin?"

"It would appear that they've been put on limited operations." Rodney said. "They'll defend themselves if there is a danger that they might be damaged, but that's about it. If we don't look threatening, I think we should be safe."

"Have you found the off button yet?"

"Give me a minute." McKay tapped a few more keys, causing the computer to squeal. Then slowly and systematically, the power died. Above them, the brain stopped moving, and blood started to congeal in the veins. All the Spherekin froze

"Oh, I _am_ brilliant." McKay congratulated himself.

"Good job, McKay." Blue nodded.

"Fall back to the Gate." Major Lorne ordered.

"That was easier than I expected." Blue murmured. She activated her earpiece. "Get back to the Elaurca gate, inform Colonel Carter and General O'Neill that the threat has been neutralised." She ordered. "Lets get it moving, boys and girls."

"I really think it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a look around while we're here." McKay said.

"Right now I want to get back to the Daedalus and confirm that the shadow dimensions have sunk back into obscurity." The Gate leapt into life. Blue watched as her team began to pass through.

"That was deceptively easy." McKay dusted his hands free of imaginary dirt. She gave a minute shrug.

"You do get the easy ones sometimes."

"It's just they aren't the ones doing the rounds in the lunch room." Major Lorne said, stepping up beside Blue and McKay.

The three of them were about to follow the tail end of the team through the Stargate when the floor began to rumble. Blue cast a look behind her as dust and rock fragments began to tumble down from the ceiling.

"What the hell is that?" McKay said in a hushed tone. Both Blue and Major Lorne stepped down from the Stragate's dais. The major looked up at the falling debris and then in the direction the doctor was pointing, his lips pressed into a thin line.

"It's never just an easy one," He grumbled.

The brain was stone cold. All synapses had ceased firing a few minutes ago now. Rodney McKay had assured them. But for some reason, the opaque tower of crystal directly beneath the brain began to glow brighter and brighter. Blue and Evan approached it cautiously.

"I wouldn't do that," McKay called out behind them. Blue stared at the tower, brow furrowed. And suddenly in an instant it hit her.

"It's a _stasis pod_!" She grabbed Major Lorne's arm and dragged him back several steps. _Stupid stupid stupidstupidstupid- _As one, the primal Spherekin activated and rushed forward to accost the remaining team members. The air around Blue erupted in a haze of bullets.

"The Stargate!" She shouted over the gunfire.

Then the crystal chamber exploded, and Blue found herself flattened as Lorne grabbed her around the waist and threw her to the ground, covering her body with his own. For a minute or so she was unaware of everything.

When she regained consciousness, her face stung with a myriad of small cuts, and the arm she had raised to shield her eyes was torn open and bleeding. Evan Lorne lay beside her, eyes closed and seemingly asleep.

But he wasn't moving.

Ignoring her own pain, she climbed to her knees and pulled out her field bandages. Major Lorne had suffered the full force of the explosion and several shards of crystal had pierced his vest and uniform, standing up between his ribs. Ignoring whatever may have emerged from the pod, Blue worked on stemming the blood flow.

There was a hand on her shoulder and she looked up into Rodney McKay's face. A fragment had cleaved open his cheek and his brow was peppered with bloody cuts, but otherwise he appeared intact. Wordlessly he handed her his own bandages.

She nodded in silent thanks.

The Spherekin stood silent and still one more. Standing in the middle of the fading circle of light and dancing flames was a female figure with her arms stretched straight up to the sky and her face turned up joyfully. The temperature of the room seemed to drop with every passing minute, and the survivors were soon breathing out clouds of steam.

And then she faced them.

"Oh, God." Blue breathed.

She was beautiful. Glorious. But her skin was cold and blue and ice clung to her clothes and flesh, giving her the appearance of a corpse. But the worse was where her eyes should have been. Staring out at them were two shadowed, empty sockets, a pinpoint of cold light flickering at the bottom of both of those dark pits.

"What are _you_?"

The creature cocked its head at them, and after a moment a hiss issued from her mouth.

"We are the ones that came before all others." It said, and in that voice there were echoes of many others. "We are legion. And we have been freed."

And then the creature raised her hands again and the world got brighter and brighter and Blue couldn't feel Lorne underneath her hands anymore and couldn't hear McKay breathing by her ear and couldn't shout for the rest of the team and couldn't-

...


	10. Chapter 10

She opened her eyes.

She was still standing in the same room she had been in a minute ago, but now everything was still and silent, all signs of a struggle erased. The machines stood like silent sentinels.

Blue slowly walked around in a circle.

"Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore." She breathed. "Evan? McKay? Anyone?"

Blue grasped her hair, locking her fingers behind her head. "You know, this was _supposed _to be my week off." She grumbled to nobody in particular.

"Hello."

She spun around, loosening her body in preparation to spring. Behind her stood a man. The expression he wore told her that this was just another day for him. As she studied his strangely impassive stance, Blue recognised the intricate patterns on the sleeves of his shirt.

They were the same symbols she woke to every morning on Atlantis.

_Oh. No._

"Hi." She narrowed her eyes. "I'd ask who you were, but I think I'd just be wasting my time."

One eyebrow rose slightly, but otherwise she hardly registered on his radar. "I am Heimdall. I am one of those that you know as Ancients."

"Forgive me if I don't bow or scrape; it plays merry hell with my knees." Blue said scathingly. "Listen, you mind sending me back? I had people who were hurt back there and I don't really have time for a head trip to Narnia."

Heimdall's indifferent look was slowly turning into one of curiosity. "Do you have no respect for your forebears?"

"Me? I've got _tons _of respect for my forebears, but in the last five years I've lost count of how many problems you Ancients left for _us _to fix, so forgive me if I say that right now I'd be more excited about foot rot." She put her hands on her hips, and noticed that wherever he had taken her, he had not taken along her weapons. _Duh._ "What do you want?"

"_I _do not want anything."

"If you start that Ancient riddlething that all of you have going, I swear I'm going to find out exactly what plane you're existing on and punt you into the middle of your own next week." She said. "Sorry if I come across as rude, but being yanked out of your home dimension without even a heads up makes me cranky."

The way Heimdall looked at her now was like he had an extremely nasty taste in his mouth. "And like any child, you complain when your parents come to chastise you." He said.

"What?" That caught her off guard. "But we haven't done anything... lately."

"The universe is in chaos. The universe requires chaos to try and change itself into something better, a new beginning." He said. "Without it, we all would be standing still."

"What are you saying?"

"How do you think there can be evidence of races existing long before your time? Everything dies. Everything ends."

Blue stared at him, not comprehending. "Are you saying... are you saying that... we're done? But we're trying to fix things, to catch whatever escaped from that holding pod! There hasn't even been a war or anything! We can't just... stop."

"As soon as she was released, your days were numbered." The Ancient said calmly. "Ran's defeat is now in the hands of the children of the new Universe."

"Why are you telling me that we're all going to die?" Blue whispered. There was an unreadable look in Heimdall's eyes, and suddenly she wasn't there anymore.

Blue fought her way up through layers of blackness to regain consciousness.

Her eyes snapped open. There were little Spherekin all around her, wandering aimlessly in circles, like their batteries were running down. Blue watched them stumble drunkenly around a little longer, more amused than she should have rightly been under the circumstances.

"It's about time," McKay snapped when he saw that she was awake. "A little help here?"

Blue ran her tongue over her lips. "Why does my mouth taste like mint?"

"That would be my mouthwash."

"What?"

"You stopped breathing! What was I supposed to do?"

She stared around herself, not really seeing. It felt like hours since the explosion and the meeting with Heimdall, but it could have only been moments. "Why haven't you dialled the Gate?" She demanded.

"We can't get a lock." McKay said. Knees almost folding underneath her, Blue clenched her teeth and went over to the dialling device, determinedly not looking at the injured members of her team. The priority was to get channels of communication open between themselves and their people on board the Daedalus.

As soon as she set her hands on the dialling device, the chevrons began to glow and the device emitted a low hum. Blue dialled the address.

The Stargate whirred into life.

"Now that's just not _fair_." Rodney complained, put out that a problem he couldn't uncover was simply _cured _by the Colonel.

"Someone wanted to tell me something." She said. "I guess I couldn't leave until I'd heard the whole message. Okay, people, let's get the wounded back to the Daedalus!"

"What message?"

Blue watched as two of her men hauled Major Lorne through the event horizon before answering.

"You know, we're all going to die horribly."

"The usual, then."

_Why would he tell me that we're all going to die? Why would he tell me that we're all going to die when there's nothing we can do about it anyway?_

_And who's Ran?_

_Max..._

The Gate swallowed them and catapulted them through the stars, sending them back to Elaurca.

"Daedalus, this is Lieutenant Colonel Jones of the away team. We've Gated back to Elaurca, but can't go any further. This is Colonel Jones, Daedalus please respond. We have wounded down here..."

* * *

He had a limp, but that didn't stop Daniel from pacing up and down.

"Ran is a primordial Norse goddess of the sea. She was married to the sea god Aegir and together they had nine daughters who ruled the oceans."

"My mum only had two and it almost killed her," Blue remarked. "Sea god, what are we looking at here, Jackson? Ancient, ascended, or something else?"

Daniel took off his glasses and shook his head.

"What I find curious is this visitation you had." He said.

"Really? Because I just found it weird and disturbing."

"You see, in Norse mythology, Heimdall is in fact the grandson of Ran."

"So Heimie was warning me that his grandmum escaped and _she's _the one who's causing the universe to go all... bendy?"

"Well, the Ascended aren't strictly allowed to interfere with the lives of the..."

"Idiots?"

"Unascended."

"Yes, I've read the recruiting posters."

"I believe that in his own way by mentioning Ran's name to you, Heimdall was giving us an early warning that if we can defeat Ran, we can return things back the way they're supposed to be. Strictly he would not be breaking the Ascended's rules."

"And how do we defeat Ran?"

"Mythologically speaking, Ran and Aegir lived in the underwater kingdom of Delos."

Blue rose from her seat. "I'll get down to the surface. Maybe Delos means something to Max."

"There's another thing we should watch out for."

"Yes?"

"Ran was hardly as peaceful as Aegir was. Her main symbol was the fishing net and she was held responsible for all shipwrecks and all the drowned spirits made their way to her-"

"Jackson!"

"Ran is a death goddess, and was offered human sacrifices for her favour. Coming up against her, if you get that far, will be extremely dangerous." He warned.

_That's why I get paid the big bucks._

"I'll figure it out. Somehow." Blue said grimly.

"You should go to the infirmary."

"There's no time."

"There never is." Daniel murmured.

She walked down the buzzing corridors of the Daedalus, passed wordlessly by techies and airmen. She felt like everyone was staring at her. Her, the snap-promoted Lieutenant Colonel who had jumped in at the deep end and had put half of her away team in the infirmary. Blue touched her earpiece.

"Captain Ferris, this is Colonel Jones."

"_Yes, Colonel?"_

"Can you put the Commander of the Furlings on the line?"

"_I'll see what I can do, ma'am."_

The line on the surface of the planet dropped off. Blue sighed, and waited for the contact to be re-established.

To her right, Dr Keller stepped from the infirmary, holding a clipboard. She and Blue almost collided.

"Oh!" She exclaimed. "Colonel Jones!"

"Oops, sorry, Doc." Blue apologised, wanting to get as far away from the medic and the infirmary as possible. Dr Keller noticed how the tall redhead reacted, pulling her head back and her body language becoming immediately defensive, expecting judgement. She wanted to leave, but something kept her there, staring at the doctor.

"How is... everyone?" Blue finally asked tentatively.

"Well, at the moment all are in stable conditions." Keller said. "Lieutenant Langdon might end out losing his hand, but he'll be fine in the long run. And what about yourself? The medics only saw you briefly when you beamed on board."

"I'm fine. Really." Blue said quickly. "Ev – Major Lorne took the force of the explosion. How is he?" She asked tentatively, hoping the doctor could not hear the guilt in her voice.

"He's out of any immediate danger, but we've placed him in an induced coma." Keller said quickly. "The larger fragments of shrapnel have been removed, but there are shards that have flaked off and lodged dangerously close to vertebrae in his spine, which we will be attempting to remove in the next day or so. It's a risky procedure, though."

"Oh." She said in a small voice. Even though Blue wasn't a doctor, she had some measure of what would most likely happen. _Because he threw you out of the way, Evan will probably be crippled for the rest of his life._ This wasn't what was supposed to happen. The Stargate teams ran into trouble, but everything worked out okay. It always did.

It's not right.

"You know, you should really get those cuts checked out and treated properly or you might be stuck with the scars the rest of your life."

"I've got so many now that a few more won't hurt." Blue dismissed. "Thanks for-"

And once again she was beamed out of the ship.

"-the info," She finished.

She was standing in the foyer of the Elaurca embassy. It was empty now, but for one spot of light. Blue squinted and walked toward the door. "Oh, it's you guys." She said, completely relieved.

"Captain Ferris said that you wanted to speak to the Commander. He thought that this was the best way." Max said with his crooked smile. The Furling was towering over him, calm and serene. Nothing bothered the creature. He had survived the destruction of the last universe and would probably survive the destruction of this one, becoming mentor to the next group of heroes.

"Colonel Jones." He greeted.

"Are you alright?" Max asked.

_No, I'm not. _"Yeah, I'm fine, everything's good." She replied. "Do either of you know of a place called Delos?"

Max immediately went rigid.

"Why?" He asked.

_Uh oh. _"I will beat it out of you if I need to." Blue took a step back, eyes narrowed. "Start talking, spaceman."

Max stayed wordless for about another half a minute.

"Delos is... the ancestral home of my people." He said reluctantly.

"So Ran would be...?" Blue asked suspiciously.

"The Tau'ri themselves are the second evolution of the Ancients." Max said, not quite answering her question. "However, the Ancients are a fourth or fifth evolution of another species entirely."

"You _what_? Why didn't you tell me that before? Who is Ran?"

"Blue-"

"_Who is Ran_?"

He sighed. "Thirteen billion years ago, when my people were still only a fairly primitive and barbaric warrior nation, there was a great scientist on Delos. Her name was Ran Rangda, and our history has even dubbed her as the first scientist. She married the head of the Council of that time, and her power was absolute."

_Warrior nation? The_ Ancients_ are the Eyeless Ones._

"And what happened?" Blue whispered.

"She was the reason that the old planet was abandoned." Max said, with the air of reciting something he had learned by rote. "One of her experiments caused a reaction deep in the planet's core, causing pressure to build up."

"Delos exploded."

"Ran was brought in front of the Council and charged with genocide."

"What did a charge of genocide mean back then?"

"Normally, death. But on the scale Ran had slaughtered her own people, she was condemned to-"

"Yes?" Blue wasn't sure she really wanted to know.

"She was condemned to exist in permanent stasis."

"When I saw her, she said 'we'. Who would we be?"

"Her daughters." Max said softly. "Most likely."

"How do we get to Delos?"

"There's nothing there."

"Let me decide that. If this woman has finally escaped after so many billion years, she'll go back to the one place she remembered last, right? I know that's what I would do."

"And then you'll kill her."

"She could have let my team get through the Gate. Instead she attacked my people while their backs were turned, and that's a coward's way out. I _will _nail her to the wall."

"Maybe we can just talk to her-"

"What? Why are you protecting this woman?"

"I guess I can empathise with her, is all." Max retorted. "Our people left us both out in the cold, left us _both _in permanent stasis. Maybe I can reason-"

"No matter how good you are, _you can't reason with a monster!_ _Billions _of years stuck in stasis, Max. Even if blowing up Delos was just an awful, terrible mistake, what do you think has happened to her _mind_ since then? What's happened to _yours_? Who were _you_ ten thousand years ago? Who says that in a couple of million years you won't begin to change, become bitter, become violent? And _I _know, if _my _people did this to me, they would be the first ones I would come after once I got out. And guess who's the only man standing right now?"

Blue suddenly became aware that General O'Neill and Colonel Carter were standing just outside the door.

"Sorry to interrupt the domestics." O'Neill said. "But we've just lost contact with Earth."


	11. Chapter 11

Earth may have been gone, but Max didn't dwell. To him, the planet was just another in a long line of places he had lived which had been lost in the oncoming tide of time. He watched the activity on board the Daedalus slowly crawl to a stop.

He was walking down the corridor when apparently of its own violation a door opened just as he passed it. No one came out. Max peered in the other direction toward the bridge, before glancing inside the room.

It seemed to b e a massive archive room. He hazarded a guess that the technology was Asgard in origin. He stood in the doorway for a good long while just staring at the control crystals and star maps before briskly stepping into the room, letting the door close behind him.

He never liked it when this happened.

"I assume I'm talking to Heimdall?" He demanded the empty room. "Why all the cloak and dagger?"

"I am not here of the Others violation." And suddenly the Ascended one was there, standing behind him with the same serene-yet-smug expression that Max had learned to loathe. "You are not so easy to locate, and that is why the others have not prevented me coming here."

"Why can't they come?" Max frowned.

Heimdall held out a hand. An Asgard chart of a star system appeared above the computer terminal. The log date was three billion years ago. Max though he recognised the image from somewhere, but did not recall the alignment. He crossed to the terminal and stared at the screen.

"Oh my," Without thinking, he pulled up another chart and compared the two. "We are royally-"

"You are not currently a fixed point in time." The Ascended said. "Therefore the Others cannot locate you."

"You did." Max pointed out.

Heimdall smiled. "Before my Ascension, I was a temporal physicist. I still possess certain understandings that the Others have forgotten."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I have the same limitations placed on me as you do. I cannot offer direct advice, only counsel. Interference would only provoke the Others."

"Why are you here? Why are you helping us?"

"The universe is older than any of us realise." He replied wistfully. "Much older." His serene gaze turned on Max, now sharp and calculating. "All that any of us want to do is to go home."

There was the smallest of gestures back toward the computer terminal. An idea began to form in Max's mind and some of what the Ascended was saying began to fall into place.

"The thing is," Heimdall continued conversationally. "Don't you think it's about time you joined us, brother?"

Max's head snapped up. "What are you-?"

The room was once again empty.

"...talking about,"

He looked around himself for a moment longer before sitting down in front of the Asgard terminal. With a tap of several keys, he pulled up the current logged solar system star map and placed it beside the other two.

"Yes, we are absolutely-"

"When you're through talking to yourself, Blue's looking for you." Harry was leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. "And you better have pulled something brilliant out of your butt because immortal or not, I think she _might _just take a stab at killing you."

Max fed all three star charts through the small laser printer that was bolted down beneath one of the benches and checked the print outs. "I hope she knows that not everything is my fault."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I think she's just running on the assumption because every problem we've been in lately has been somehow tied to you, and-" At Max's look, he faltered to a stop. "Right. A rhetorical statement. You should warn people before throwing those around."

Max gathered his papers. "I need to speak to everyone anyway."

"You've got a plan."

"Maybe."

"Good. 'Cause right now a _maybe _is the best we've got."

Max blinked at him. "Did you lot _really_ foil the plots of every evil alien in this arm of the galaxy?"

Harry grinned. "They would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for us meddling kids."

The full briefing room harkened back to Max's own military days in the Pegasus galaxy, and for a moment he felt a twinge of irrational panic. Then he calmed himself and stepped forward.

"Earth hasn't been destroyed." He announced.

The room immediately erupted into a wave of protests.

"Then why isn't it there? No, over there," McKay pointed out into space.

"Have you been logging the changes in space alignment, Doctor?"

Max waited for the uncomfortable silence before continuing. "I didn't think of it either, at first. But then I realised that the Asgard technology that is ingrained in this ship is programmed to log each system it passes through every few hours or so, so the computer can accurately calculate the degree of planetary drift."

"Of course." Carter said. "We have a similar mechanism back home written into our dialling computer that automatically compensates for interplanetary drift. I should have thought to check the logs." Of all the minds in the room, Samantha Carter was the first to begin to understand what was going on. She walked up to stand beside Max and took the papers out of his hand.

"You _were_ slightly preoccupied at the time." Max said quickly. Carter flashed him a smile as she took over from him.

"Carter?" General O'Neill asked patiently. "What's happening?"

"Maxel is right, sir. It's all in the charts." Carter lay them all out on the table. "Earth still exists, it's just that we're about three or four billion years early."

"Come again?"

"This Ran, she's somehow moving the universe backwards in time. We were seeing all these shadow dimensions because before the Big Bang, they _were_ the only ones that existed. What I can't understand is how she can harness that amount of power without a visible means of support."

"Maybe she's got her hands on a Flux Capacitor." Colonel Sheppard ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up at an even odder angle.

"Why would she want to go back in time in the first place?" Colonel Mitchell asked.

"Judging by what both Max and Heimdall have said, Ran destroyed her home planet and most of her people." Carter continued. "Then she was imprisoned for billions of years. What would you do if you escaped after that long in prison?"

"Go for beer?" Jack said.

"Close, sir."

"I'd want to go home." Mitchell said. "Even if it was going to be the last time I ever saw it."

"Exactly." Max said. "Heimdall was talking in riddles to be sure that the Others would not stop him from warning us. Ran is going home."

"But home hasn't existed for billions of years."

"Yes."

"So she's reversing time?"

"Yes."

"So why are we still here?"

"The universe is degrading at the edges, and we all managed to jump ship before the ground quite literally fell away beneath us. It's because of this ship that we're still here. Earth was a fixed point in time, the _Daedalus _isn't. And we wouldn't be the only ship that's been swept up in the ripples. That's probably why your scanner has been registering things that aren't there; we _aren't real_ until we land somewhere."

"So let's land." General O'Neill said.

"No, sir." Max said. "As soon as we land, we are a _fixed point in time_, which means we'll be stuck, without a way to get back with no opportunity but to live out our days wherever we land."

"So what do you suggest?" Jack asked curiously.

"I know where she's going. Her home planet." Max said grimly. "I can give you the coordinates. You have to get me there so I can stop her."

"Stop her from doing what?"

"Stop her from stopping her other self from destroying the planet." Carter said immediately.

"And that's a bad thing because...?"

"Sir, Ran's people are our own ancestors. If Delos is never destroyed, there would have been no reason for the Ancients to come to the Pegasus galaxy."

"Or to evacuate to Earth to escape the Wraith." Max added.

"And that would mean we never would have existed, right?" Both Max and Sam nodded. "That's bad. Okay, kids, what's the plan?"

"I need access to your laboratory. Colonel Carter, I could use your assistance."

"Of course. Anything." Sam answered.

"What are you going to do?" Blue asked. She had been silent until this moment. Max looked straight up the back to her.

"I'm going to build a temporal device." He said frankly. "That will still enable people to access the field, but will prevent any living organism to enter it. When I have located Ran, I will imprison her in stasis once again."

"But I though you said that the Ascended will stop you from doing anything science-y or showing us dumb apes how it's done?"

"All the more reason to hurry."

"You're going to get yourself killed."

"It's always nice to see a leader with so much faith in their men." General O'Neill made a show of standing up and dusting off his hands. "Well, I suppose we better suit up."

"What?" Blue was so startled she even forgot to add the obligatory 'sir'.

"You didn't think I was going to let just you and the alien risk your lives? We've got one shot at this." Jack looked at Max and Sam. "Get to work. Use any other brain you need." His head swung back to look sharply at Blue. "Get ready to leave, Colonel. SG1 is coming with."

Blue stood and saluted. "Yes, sir."

* * *

Sam watched the Ancient move about the laboratory as if he had always worked there. Out of all the Ancients she had met, Max seemed to be the most human, thought he probably had the most reason to act as though he was above everybody else.

"You must miss it." She said finally, watching him move around with an expertise that could have only been gleaned from years of work.

"Hm? Miss what?"

"Your work. Home." She watched him bolt things together, wanting to help but not having the slightest clue of where to start. His level of technology was so far above her head it was unbelievable. Really, she'd quite like to dissect his brain. Well, not_ literally_.

"Do you really think we can defeat Ran?" Sam put the question to him directly.

"Sure." He said this so casually that Sam's finely tuned bullshit-o-metre began to sound an alarm.

"Oh, I can just tell by the fact that you're rewiring the temporal control matrix to bypass the activation code." She said smoothly. "Which means that even activated, the device is a dud."

Max stiffened and Sam saw his eyes widen in shock before he looked up at her. The corner of Sam's mouth lifted in a smirk.

"What are you trying to do, Maxel?" She asked softly.

Max heaved a great sigh. "I don't believe we have the level of technology to defeat Ran by ourselves." He confessed.

"Why do you say that?"

Another, even greater, sigh.

"Because in Ran's time there was no value placed in science." He said. "Billions of years ago when our ancestors first existed, their culture primarily existed on their faith."

"Isn't that what Ascension is?"

"And magic."

"Magic?" Sam echoed.

"It's still energy."

"But it's not real. It's not real?"

"It's not." Max said. "But her mind is more primitive, her powers are more primitive, and are therefore more volatile."

"What do you plan to do?"

"The other Ascended can't sense me because we're completely out of phase, Colonel. As soon as I beam down onto Delos, like the rest of you, I will become a fixed point in time. And the Others will come for me because I have given you Ancient technology." He indicated the small generator between them. "They'll destroy me. And I will take Ran down with me."

"You're going to sacrifice yourself to save us. Why?"

"I've lived a very long time. And I'm very tired." He said this simply, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"And you haven't told this to your friend Colonel Jones."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because she'd try to talk me out of it. And I'd probably listen." He looked down at the generator. "That line about the temporal control matrix?"

"A complete guess, yeah." Colonel Carter smiled apologetically.

"You are a very devious woman."

"And _you're_ hardly the first one to tell me that."

The laboratory door hissed open, and Rodney McKay bustled in, coffee in one hand and doughnut in the other.

"Sorry." He said briskly. "Didn't get the memo that you wanted all the geniuses on the ship right away. So, shall we get started?"


	12. Chapter 12

_"As we are originally from another time, once on the surface of the planet, we will all be open to temporal degredation."_

_"What's that when it's at home?"_

_"It means that every moment Ran approaches her goal, we are slowly being written out of existance. Teal'c has offered to carry the generator with us, and while the device is still active, we will remain mostly corporeal."_

* * *

"And not for the first time, I ask, why am I here?"

Blue could hear the underlying bitterness in Harry's voice as he slipped into his vest and began to systematically check his equipment.

"I'm ASIO. I've had weapons training but I've never trained for combat. So why am I here? Then I remember that I was beamed up by a vastly superior alien who is _yet again _strangely absent from this piece."

"He'll be back." Max said vaguely.

"Yes, probably just in time to warn us about the next intergalactic catastrophe and making sure we're so deep in it that we can barely see daylight before buggering off to whatever rock he crawled out of under."

For a moment Blue thought about defending the Furling, and then decided it wasn't worth the effort. The gigantic alien had turned their lives upside down and then vanished as abruptly as he had first appeared. Something that Max would like to do right now, actually.

"How's Jackson?" Blue asked as General O'Neill entered the bridge. The archaeologist was still in the infirmary, recovering from injuries sustained in the explosion.

"Oh, you know. Cheesed off that he can't come with. Something about the archaeological find of the century."

"Strictly speaking, the planet actually hasn't been lost yet."

"That's what I said."

The both of them were about to join the rest of the team when something rocked the Daedalus with such force it almost knocked all those standing off their feet.

"What the hell was that?" Harry demanded.

"Shields down to eighty percent." The bridge technician said. "Weapons on the surface of the planet preparing to fire again."

"If you're going to do something, now would be a good time." Colonel Caldwell commanded.

"I thought you said they were technologically backward?" Carter shot at Max.

"I said the majority of the people believed in the arcane. I never said they were technologically backward."

"We should hail them," Colonel Mitchell suggested.

"No time." Blue disagreed.

"Too many Colonels." O'Neill shook his head mournfully. "Get us down on that planet _now_."

"We'll await your orders, sir." Caldwell said.

"You'll be waiting a while." Max murmured, loud enough for Blue to hear.

"Sir, how do we know that the mission has been a success?"

"You don't." Jack said flatly.

Blue had been materialised and dematerialised more times than she could remember over the last few years. She'd been Gated into the middle of space battles and beamed into war zones more times than she'd care to remember. Her atoms had been broken down and juggled around so often that she was actually quite surprised that her insides hadn't liquefied yet.

Never had she beamed quite like this.

Her head had smashed against something hard and she had dropped her P90 upon impact. "Ah." Blue rubbed the back of her neck. Her hand came back with red fingers, but she had not time to lie still and hope she didn't have a concussion.

She was hardly the only one picking themselves off the ground.

"What the hell was that?" Mitchell hissed.

"I do believe the Eyeless Ones fired upon us a second time." Teal'c said calmly.

Colonel Carter raked the hair out of her eyes. "The missiles must have hit the beaming array just as we were being reconstituted."

Jack looked at her a moment. "Oh."

Out of the corner of her eye, Blue could see Max gearing up to make a scathing remark about the way the humans were using Asgard technology, and she stepped on his foot.

"We've got company." Harry was crouching halfway up the rise, being his usual sneaky self. Blue scrambled up to join him, tugging a pair of binoculars out of a vest pocket. Max had said the primitive Ancients had been a warlike race, and she wasn't disappointed.

The man in front seemed to be a leader of sorts. He was bare-chested and battle scarred, an assortment of sharp-looking weapons slung across his person. Standing beside her, he would have seriously dwarfed her in size. The other men and women with him looked equally tough. True to Max's word, only a small percentage carried guns or laser weapons of any kind.

The procession came right up to the edge of the spot where SG1 and their additional members were hiding, so close that Blue could have reached out of the bushes and touched the fine gossamer wraps the women were wearing.

And they walked straight past.

"Best hunters in the galaxy." Blue commented quietly.

"Who's going to be mad enough to attack them on their own turf?"

"Well, there's nothing else to do... but follow them." General O'Neill lightly leapt down to the woodland path. "What should we be looking out for, Maxie?"

Max shrugged. "The usual."

"That's very helpful."

"I'm relying on old stories and history lessons from when I was twelve which I didn't pay much attention to anyway. Quite a bit more has happened to me since then."

"I bet."

Max wrung his memory for any information they could use. "Before fleeing Delos, the Eyeless Ones were heavily influenced by magic and believed that periodical sacrifices gave them strength." He said slowly. "But we don't know the customs here, so let's just try to stay out of trouble."

"Trouble? Us?" Mitchell said innocently.

Blue stepped into the road dust that the convoy had left behind.

"Daedalus, we have reached the planet's surface. Do you read?"

The radio noise seemed to loom out at them ominously. It seemed that Max's diagnosis was correct. From the Daedalus's point of view, SG1 no longer existed. O'Neill abandoned the radio. As Colonel Mitchell, General O'Neill and Teal'c scouted ahead, Blue dropped slightly behind to eavesdrop on the conversation between Harry, Max, and Sam.

"At this point in time, actually _how _advanced are these people?" Carter asked. Blue felt an irrational twinge of jealousy over the fact that Max answered all the Colonel's questions in a straightforward manner and not in that arrogant-and-superior way of his.

"Forget about technology. Did you see the knife on that bloke? You could gut a small child with that!" Harry exclaimed. He blinked up at the primordial suns. "DJ would be pissing himself with excitement 'round about now."

Carter seemed only mildly shocked at Harry's colourful expression. Spending most of her time in the company of men was beginning to rub off on her. "I know you talk about DJ like he's some kind of genius, and when he was in the lab he seemed to be just that, but he's... just a kid."

"How old were you when you joined the military?" Harry asked pointedly.

Carter smiled ruefully. "Just a kid."

"So, how advanced?"

Max's look clearly said _how should I know?_

"I know I've lived a long time, but I'm not _that_ old." He said. Then his eyes brightened. "I do know that about two years after Delos is destroyed, their engineers begin their decent into science and begin to manufacture the first of the _Atlantis_-standard cruisers."

For a moment Sam was enthralled with the idea of witnessing firsthand the designing and building process of other ships like Atlantis.

"Max?"

"Yes?"

"Exactly how many Atlantis-standard cruisers did the Ancients manufacture?" Carter asked curiously.

"At the height of out power, we had a fleet of half a million, excluding fighters and support vessels."

"So there could be... other lost cities out there?"

"I suppose so."

"And there's a possibility that not _all _the cities would have been evacuated? There could be others like us, descendants of the Ancients."

"I guess."

Eyes filled with new possibilities, Carter dropped into a pensive silence as Blue took her place in the lineup.

"I've got a question." Harry said.

"Yes?"

"You built Atlantis?"

"Part of it, yes."

"Right. So whose clever idea was it to call a spaceship something wanky like _Atlantis_?"

"Oh, you know, we just put a bunch of names into a hat and drew lots."

"Really?"

"No."

Blue rolled her eyes, a small grin playing across her lips.

"The name comes from the archives." Max said slowly, as if he wasn't sure he should be telling them, but he still blundered on. "Atlantis was a name from our histories..."

Sensing something potentially apocalyptic, Blue tuned fully back into the conversation.

"Or, well, among the academic circles there was always debate on whether it had ever really-"

"Max." Blue's eyes narrowed.

"You're going to be terribly disappointed." He warned.

"Talk."

"We decided to name Atlantis after a mythological city of the ancestors."

Blue almost fell over.

"You named Atlantis after a _mythological city_?" She hissed. "But we - Do you have any idea what you've just done to the validity of the whole Pegasus expedition? For the last five years I've been stuck in a sci-fi extravaganza, and now it's 'oops-by-the-way-you-never-really-made-it-to-Atlantis'? Way to make a girl feel cheap."

"You discovered _a _Atlantis." Max offered.

"Yeah, I'm not really comforted by that."

There was a building in front of them. Blue's first thought was of a medieval castle, but the watchtowers and gothic fortifications spoke differently. She looked back to Max, just in time to see him glance away from the Ancient personal shield he had taken from the Daedalus lab, his brow creased in worry. As soon as he noticed her watching, his expression was neutral once more.

Not one of the villagers glanced their way, which Blue found slightly disturbing. But, she reasoned, Harry was probably right when he said they didn't expect an attack from within the ranks.

"What now?"

"We hope that we've arrived in the right time to stop Ran." Max murmured.

"Hope." She said dully. "I could use a little bit of that."

He reached out a hand and touched her shoulder. "It's not your fault."

Blue thought of all the people still in the infirmary, of Major Lorne who would never walk again if she failed.

"Oh, I think it is."

"Cake." Jack said suddenly, snapping everyone out of their moods. "Do you smell cake?"

Inside the fortified walls there seemed to be a festival of some kind going on. She could hear singing and laughter. Blue indeed could smell cake. And roast. And the outer-space equivalent of potatoes. Suddenly she realised that she hadn't eaten since... forever. Maybe longer.

She was standing with Max and Harry when she noticed the exact reason for the celebrations.

The same man she had seen earlier climbed atop a dais to address his people and spread out his arms in welcome. He seemed to be wearing the entire contents of the Eyeless Ones' armoury, and the blades caught the glare of the sun.

He spoke. The dialect had a similar ring to something Blue had heard before, but she was no linguist. Almost instantly, every member of SG1 turned to look at Max.

The Ancient looked pensive for a moment and Blue could actually _see _as he sifted backwards in his memory, looking for the exact language he needed.

"Um, he's welcoming all his people and thanking them all for being here today, and going on a bit about the glory of the Eyeless Ones, look how fabulous we all are..."

"As you do." Jack said.

"...glory of the Empire, and... oh."

"Oh?"

About as soon as the words were past his lips, none of SG1 needed to hear why Max was suddenly concerned, as a man was marched up to face the altar. He seemed completely calm with his lot in life, and wore a cloak of many shifting colours.

"We're just in time for the dusk sacrifice."

"The dusk sacrifice? How many sacrifices do these guys have?" O'Neill stepped forward involuntarily.

"A great empire is primarily built on fear." Teal'c said. "The people are controlled by believing that they may die at any moment."

"All right." Jack readied his weapon.

"No! We can't interfere in anything other than stopping Ran!" Max protested. "Doing anything else could dramatically alter the timeline in ways that we can't even begin-"

O'Neill looked at him warily. "I'm guessing that you're going to need a distraction." He said. "We need_ you_ in that building." He indicated the Citadel. "Jones?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Take Maxie and the spy and get yourselves into that building. Finish the mission."

"Yes, sir. What about once the mission's complete? We'll still... be here."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Get going, soldier."

"Sir."

The general gave a series of hand signals and SG1 fanned out. Blue dragged Max under the cover of the shadowy merchant stalls, Harry coming up behind, casually nursing his gun. The three of them lent against the stone walls as Teal'c fired a shot at the altar. Almost as one, the people moved away from the strangers, desperate to prove to their leader that they were not at fault for interfering with the sacrifice.

SG1 was left standing in the centre of hostile glares where each villager carried a knife.

While everyone else was otherwise occupied, Blue snagged a bolt of heavy material from one of the stands and wrapped it around herself, instantly becoming another part of the crowd. Harry followed suit. Max didn't bother; he would have looked like just another bloke no matter what planet he was on.

He stopped to stare at the personal shield again. Blue was tempted to march right over and snatch the device off his chest. Instead she pursed her lips and marched onwards, always onwards. She watched as SG1 broke formation and scattered, imperial guards on their tails, leading them on a merry chase.

"Will they be alright?" Harry asked.

"They're SG1. They do this kind of thing all the time." Though Blue wished she could dismiss her own anxieties as easily as she dismissed his.

"Stay sharp, boys." She ordered. The guards were maintaining the line to the Citadel as best they could, but now and then Blue spotted gaps in the formation as the melee began. The townsfolk, hardly meek to begin with, began to bay for blood now that they had missed the dusk sacrifice. Whose blood it was didn't seem to matter to these people.

For a moment it horrified Blue as she wondered what would happen if Delos wasn't destroyed, if the loss of the planet and most of their people didn't cause the Eyeless Ones to re-evaluate their views of life. Would they have become the new Goa'uld?

Would the human race, or whatever would become of it, be out there now, forcing the inhabitants of the universe to bow down before their Gods? The human race, with several billion years' worth of weapons tech on the backs of half a million Atlantis-standard cruisers.

It couldn't be allowed to happen.


	13. Chapter 13

**AN: And I'm on a roll, two chapters in three days. One more chapter on the way:) Hope I didn't outstay my welcome.**

**...**

The three of them slipped past the guards and the rioters and lost themselves in the burrow-like medina.

"This way." Max had his torch out and was studying the glyphs on the wall, trying to piece together a language that had been dead long before even his time.

"Are you sure?"

"Because I found this code when I was a child." Max said. "Janus and I used to use it when we… were embarking on explorative endeavours that would have been otherwise frowned upon."

"You knew Janus? Of course you knew Janus." Blue amended herself.

"I was five years older. Janus was my assistant until I discovered the formula. Even after he became a scientist in his own right, he tried to get me to reveal the formula to him right up until the point the Ancients evacuated to Earth."

"Trust you to buddy up to another mad scientist."

"Back up, Who's this Janus?"

Harry was ignored.

"You keep saying at least ten thousand years." Blue said curiously. "But you keep acting like you're so much older. Exactly how old are you?"

"Old enough to know better." Max said, and passed cleanly through the solid stone wall. Harry and Blue immediately raised their weapons.

"Holy crap! Did you see that?"

Blue edged closer to the wall. She narrowed her eyes. Sure, it looked solid, but she had been in this job long enough to know that just because it looked like a duck and quaked like a duck, it didn't necessarily mean it was a duck. She began scanning the glyphs when Max's hand reached from the wall and snagged her wrist, dragging her though some sort of force shield.

She was momentarily cold as the shield and hologram sliced through her, DNA sensors recognising her form as foreign and storing the information away in their archives. After a moment she stumbled to a stop beside Max, who was surveying the surrounds, arms folded and looking grim.

"Whoa." Her head slowly came down from the rush. Then she took stock of where she was standing.

"Whoa."

"Indeed." Max said dryly. Behind them, they were dimly aware of Harry stumbling through the shield.

"What was that?" He demanded of Max.

"The glyphs say _enter here all who seek knowledge. _Or something to that effect. We need knowledge. If we didn't we wouldn't have been able to enter the shield."

"I guess that's good." Harry said slowly. "Where are we now?"

"A genetics laboratory." Blue said soberly. "Michael had several dotted around the Pegasus galaxy."

"Michael?" Max raised an eyebrow.

"He was a Wraith who tried to kill us all."

"You named a Wraith _Michael_?"

"Well, Doctor Beckett suggested Alfie, but Colonel Sheppard wanted Mike, and he's the boss."

"Excuse me." Harry interrupted. "Could you two possibly stay on track for a bit?"

They were at the end of a hallway that led into a central room of some sort. Blue pointed her P90 at the stasis pods that lined the walls. Nine. She looked back to the boys to see Max once again glancing down at the Ancient personal shield. The light was flashing, signalling that the battery was soon to go flat. His frown was deep and frustrated, as if he had hoped that the little device would have lasted just a bit longer.

"You know, if it was really going to be that dangerous, maybe we all should have worn one." Blue observed casually.

"Worn what?" Harry was tiring of asking questions, but with every step he was more out of the loop.

"That little device there? It's an Ancient personal shield. Nothing can get in or out if you don't want it to." She said.

"Don't worry. They won't come after you."

"God help me, I should _shoot _you. _Who _won't come after us?"

"Ran was the first scientist." Max said. "And during billions of years of stasis, she worked out a way to manipulate time and space in a way we can't hope to comprehend. She's a genius. You don't seriously think she's just going to let us walk up to her and shoot her?"

"Well, I was kind of..." Blue had nothing.

"Guys?"

"I broke the rules. I gave you Ancient technology. As soon as I became a fixed point in time once more, the Others would be able to find me. This bought me a little time." He indicated the device. "The Others would find me, and punish me. I intend to take Ran with me."

"You idiot." But there was a certain amount of affection in the insult.

"Guys!" Harry snapped.

"What?"

Max and Blue followed Harry's pointing finger.

There was a woman standing in front of them, full-figured and beautiful through her eyes were sharp and calculating. She barked something at them in the native language.

Harry and Blue looked at Max.

"Er, she's demanding to know what we're doing here... something about trespassing."

The woman looked at Max before shooting off a word that sounded like 'foreigner'. She made a move to one of the laser devices lining the walls on racks.

"Hey, don't move, lady." Blue trained her gun on her. Max said something to the woman and she fell back, her eyes smouldering in anger. "I'm thinking that this is the other Ran." Blue said slowly. "What are we supposed to do with her now? We can't keep her with us, otherwise she won't blow up Delos."

Max's face was drawn and pale as he weighed the possibilities.

But the other woman used the lull in their concentration to dart toward a console set in the wall. Before Blue could think, the scientist had begun to type some sort of code into the machine.

"Stop!" Harry bellowed, and before his friend or the Ancient could react, he put two shots into the woman's back.

She slumped.

"What the hell was that?" Blue shouted. She reached for a pulse, but Harry's ASIO training had taught him to kill, not wound. She looked up and saw that there was yet another bullet in the computer.

Ran was dead.

But something else was happening.

The hallway of pods that the three of them had just passed through lit up, the power flowing from one stasis chamber to the next. The grotesque inhabitants of each were silhouetted against the force shields that contained them. At that moment, Blue remembered something.

"Oh dear."

"Oh dear what?"

"Jackson said that according to myth, Ran had nine daughters. I'm guessing she got bored with this planet a long time ago and decided to... make some interesting companions. With the ritual sacrifice and all, she probably had no shortage of spare parts around."

"I seriously can't even _begin_ to comprehend why you chose this for a career."

"Take 'em down." Blue ordered coldly. The pods opened, expelling their cargo, and she found that she was pretty much spot on with her description of the Daughters. Unfortunately. The ground began to tremble, and the power in the facility began to arc dangerously close to the trio.

Max watched the mutant Daughters shuffle across the floor toward the three of them with a mixture of revulsion and respect. Ran truly deserved the title of the first scientist. He touched his fingers once more to the Ancient shield device.

And it came off in his hand.

Blue saw this out of the corner of her eye. "Go!" She ordered. Max didn't even nod, instead he turned and fled, sprinting down the hall toward the primary control room. His fingers began to tingle as he brushed past the raw power.

And there she was, bent over the primary terminal, frantically attempting to calm the power surge. This being was far removed from the attractive creature Harry had killed; this Ran was dangerously skinny, a strange pallor to her waxy skin. She moved jerkily, almost insect-like.

This was the woman he was looking for.

"Sabotage!" She wailed in a broken form of early Ancient. "My systems have been sabotaged!"

Max's eyes widened.

"Ran."

She spun to face him, hissing like a wild creature. Her eyes were sunken and mad.

"You! You followed! You sabotaged my work! Traitor, traitor!"

"You can't change this." Max said. And he understood. All along he had thought that Ran had miscalculated in one of her experiments, but it had been one of Harry's stray bullets that had ended Delos.

"This is a fixed point in time. Even if there wasn't a fault in your computers, the planet would have been destroyed anyway."

"Liar!" She screamed at him. "Liar, liar, liar!"

He knew he probably shouldn't, but he felt sorry for her. When he was in Atlantis, he had based many of his early theories on her work. Now what stood before him was not the mother of Ancient technology, but a raving madwoman who just wanted to go home.

He saw the indistinct shadows of the Others just beyond the edges of his vision. They had come.

"It's over, Ran. You're home now." Max approached cautiously, hands held wide to either side of him. She stared at him, preparing to bolt as he got closer.

"Home?" She whimpered.

"Home. Right here." Max gently placed his hands on her shoulders. "No more running."

"Home."

He pulled her into his arms as the explosion rocked the building, and they died.

For a moment Max knew peace, and then he was thrust forcefully back into his own body.

He opened his eyes.

"What the-?"

Max was standing on the bridge of Atlantis. Slowly he walked toward a missive window, where he could see the vastness of space beyond. He lent his head on his forearm, staring out at the stars unrolling beneath him.

"You cannot help but interfere."

"Leave me alone." Max whispered. "Can't you just let me die?"

Heimdall stood there impassively.

"You aren't finished yet."

"What?" Max looked up wearily.

"The Others have reconsidered their position." Heimdall said. No hint of any emotion showed on his face. "They have rescinded their punishment. For now."

"Rescinded what? _Which_ punishment?"

The Ascended held out his hand. Max could see the orb of light on his palm. Inside, he saw fragments of his life. All those he had lost, waiting for him to come home. The Others were finally offering him the gift of Ascension?

"No."

Heimdall seemed a little puzzled over Max's refusal. "What do you-"

"I am aware of the Others' rules. And they are aware that I have no intention of obeying."

"That was taken into consideration." Hands clasped behind his back, Heimdall stood beside Max and the two of them stared out into space. "The Others... have a job for you."

"Of course they do." Max said darkly.

"I don't think you fully realise what you are being offered."

"Don't I?"

"May I speak frankly?"

"Please do."

"You are the Architect. The Father of Ascension, if you will. Of course the others have imposed their own rules to avoid the misuse of our powers, but _you_ were the one that placed limitations on Ascension to begin with."

Max's brow furrowed.

"You refused Ascension. The Others did not punish you; they were_ afraid_ of you." Heimdall said. "You were the first to touch the higher planes, and therefore you have no limit on your prowess. You were always a loose cannon, and they feared that you would quite literally take justice into your own hands were you given the means to do so."

"How can I not know about this?"

"The Others threatened you and filled your head with nonsense to keep you in your place so you would not pervert the formula and destroy them all."

"I can do that?"

Heimdall gave a shadow of a smile. "Perhaps."

* * *

At first glance, Blue surmised that she and Harry should have been easily able to take down Ran's daughters, but it soon appeared that no matter how many shots they took, the mutant creatures kept coming.

Blue found herself longing for the explosion that would end Delos, and her own life.

The last clip of her sidearm clicked onto an empty chamber. Harry was down, but Blue pulled out her Zat gun and continued firing.

She continued firing even when she was on the ground. Continued firing as fire raced through the building and down the halls. Continued firing even as she felt her skin blistering.

And then there was a white light, and nothing, and she knew with an utmost certainty that she had died.

Or at least she thought so until she opened her eyes.

Blue was lying on her back staring at a low ceiling. She could hear the hum of engines somewhere below her.

Her bare arms and face hurt like a mother. Gritting her teeth, she rolled over and slapped Harry's face until he came around.

"Lay off," He grumbled, slapping at her hands weakly.

"We're on a ship." She said softly, pressing her palms against the hull and staring out into space. Far below her, red cracks worked their way around the surface of Delos. Mentally Blue began to count down to the fireworks.

Harry forced himself into a sitting position. "How?" There was blood on his lips and vest, but otherwise he seemed lucid.

"Max," Blue whispered. Then she grinned. "You're going to live forever, might as well enjoy the ride."

"What?"

"Jones? Evans?"

She looked away from the window. The door had hissed open, and she could see the bedraggled figures of SG1.

They all looked at each other for a moment.

"You look like hell." Jack said.

And even though Blue was blackened, burned, torn, aching and dirty, she doubled over in helpless laughter.

...

"_You're finishing?"_

"_Yup."_

"_Just like that? That sucks."_

"_Hey, I think I'm owed a little kudos for keeping a story going mainly about an imaginary secondary character who's a skip away from becoming a Mary Sue!"_

"_But you can't end it like that! Like it just stops!"_

"_But that's what the Stargate writers do all the time,"_

"_Yeah, and you become a Stargate writer _when_ exactly?"_

"_Okay, I'll give you your damn ending."_


	14. Chapter 14

**Billions of years ago...**

Somehow Max had managed to snatch SG1 from the very moment Delos split apart and deposited them safely on board one of the primitive fleeing spacecraft. Even years later, Clementine Jones was never quite sure whether she should be grateful or angry.

SG1 were soon fully accepted into the community that had renamed themselves something that roughly translated as the Ancients. She never really figured out if that was another of Max's little tricks or whether it was the beginning of a new age of understanding among these people.

She couldn't be a soldier any more. Deciding on a complete career change, she approached the ruling council that had formed in the wake of Delos's destruction, and soon she was put to work on the construction of the very ship that was the precursor of Atlantis.

She became a scientist.

The Ancients had begun to tentatively reach out into the galaxy for allies, and upon noticing Clementine's efficiency when dealing with foreign dignitaries, the scientist was dully assigned to oversee all ambassadorial activities. She was given the authority to choose a team of explorers and scientists to approach other races in hope of forming alliances.

That, at least, she knew how to do.

Clementine remembered meeting the Asgard. The race was the first to recognise the Ancients' potential, and the normally reclusive people joined them in what would one day be the Alliance of Five Races. She and her team encountered the ancestors of the Nox, and she suggested that the Council keep their eye on the developing race.

She lived her life. Then she saw him.

He was one of the lesser members of the hierarchy among the visiting ambassadors. She kept an eye on him. He seemed incredibly young. Almost too young. He seemed as curious about her adopted race as she was about him. As her team went about drawing up the alliance, she followed him.

He had accessed one of the computer terminals and was rifling through their archives, trying to gain some insight into these people who had made the transition from savages into a cultured and civilised people. He was clumsy, back then.

"Hello."

He spun around to stare at the old woman standing behind him, guilt and embarrassment written across his alien features. Clementine smiled. He was so young. She wondered whether she was about to lead him down the road to damnation.

"I was – I know I'm not supposed to be here, but I – I got lost-" His voice got as squeaky as he spoke, rather like a boy going through puberty. He looked at her anxiously, his spurs tucked to the sides sheepishly. "Please don't tell my father."

She looked at him. "I need you to do something for me."

"And you won't tell my father?"

Clementine grinned. "I won't tell your father." She said. "I've heard that your race live quite a long time."

He stared at her. Finally he nodded slowly.

"Will you be able to give a friend of mine a message?"

"Of course. But our ship won't be departing for some time yet."

"That's not what I mean." She paused. "My friend... he won't exist for a long time yet."

He looked confused. Then understanding dawned on his face. "You want me to carry a message _to _him." There was an undeniable look of curiosity on his face, and she shook her head.

"I can't explain. Please understand that."

"You should speak to one of the others. I am only young, and-"

"Believe me, it _has _to be you."

He blinked at her. "What is this message you wish me to carry?"

"There is a man." Clementine said. "He's – well, you'll know him when you see him. He will be born an Ancient. He'll be the most inquisitive Ancient that ever existed, and one day by accident you're going to meet him and you're going to show him my face, what I looked like when I was young." She touched her fading red hair. "Tell him that no matter how bad things are, he's got important things to do."

He reached out a claw to touch her face softly. Clementine was enveloped in a soft, safe feeling as she felt him reach backwards in her memory to find the image of the young woman who journeyed across the stars.

"I will."

The alien, one day to be the Commander of the Furlings said solemnly.

It was hard to wrap her head around, the fact that what she did here made her life happen the way it did.

And Clementine wondered whether this would doom or save her future self.

**August, 2009**

There was a knock on the door.

"I can't believe you people, I'm supposed to be taking it easy and here I am answering my own damn-"

Her words evaporated in her throat as she opened the door. "What are _you _doing here?" She demanded of the person standing on the doorstep.

"Nice to see you, too." Major Lorne grinned. "Word has it that there's a party going on here."

Blue glared into the lounge-room at her roommate, Laura Cadman. "Well, I'm going to have to talk to Word later."

Lorne awkwardly jammed his hands in his jacket pockets. "So, the big 40, huh?"

_Cadman must die._

"Don't worry, kid. This cougar doesn't need another notch in her bedpost quite yet. What are you doing here?"

"Well, I'm on my own time here and I was in the area, so I thought I'd drop this off."

From under the jacket he produced an unwieldy card. _Good luck! _it proclaimed. She tentatively took it from him and cracked it open. A surprising number of people had signed. "Did you _make _these people sign?"

Pretty much every military man and woman Blue had served with over the years had scribbled on the card. Colonel Sheppard had even scrawled his name across the top, complete with a little cartoon spaceship beaming up a rather surprised-looking cow.

"I think your major is already petitioning the IOA to keep you on his team."

"Yeah." She grinned, scanning the names. "I won't be going anywhere, yet."

Truth be told, Blue had actually tried to quit the program, but she was soon to find out that Stargate Command wasn't very keen on letting their people go, especially when they knew matters of homeworld security.

So she'd been shunted sideways into an advisory position with the IOA, and would be back at the SGC within the week until her posting came through. Yay?

"I'll be the one reporting your asses when we get back to work. Hey, your name isn't here."

He looked over her shoulder, avoiding eye contact. "I kind of thought I'd say goodbye in person."

"Oh, yes?"

Meeting her gaze, he cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her.

Over the course of her life, Blue didn't have very many happy surprises. Most of hers tended to be _oh-dear-I-can't-believe-none-of-us-anticipated-the-evil-aliens-would-ambush-us _surprises. So this, this was rather a new experience for her.

It took a moment before she remembered where she was. Her hands were in his hair and his were more or less cupping her butt. Evan's face was only inches away from hers, and as much as something primal inside her demanded that she drag the major inside and have her way with him, it wasn't the most practical idea at the moment.

"..._aaand _I'm guessing that's not the pizza guy."

The woman who spoke was a tall redhead with curly hair. She held a bottle of beer and grinned brightly at them. "Hi."

Blue blushed brilliantly. "This is my sister," she mumbled. "This is Major Evan Lorne. We work together."

"Uh huh." She raised an eyebrow.

"Really."

"Uh huh."

"Is that another one of Clementine's yankees?" A gruff voice hollered out the door. Major Lorne grinned as Blue wearily held a hand to her forehead.

His hand brushed hers. "Well, you're having some sort of family thing, so I'll-"

"Stay for a bit, Major." Blue's sister invited. "Dad's about to give a speech about sis's early years of alcohol-fuelled sexual promiscuity." With a little wave she turned around and flounced back inside.

"She's joking."

"Oh?"

Just as Lorne was about to say something more, two dark coloured cars came up the street. One pulled into the driveway behind Cadman's neat little red convertible and the other came to a stop on the curb directly in front of Blue and Evan.

"Major, we could have given you a lift from the SGC if we'd known you were coming too." A voice shouted across to them.

"Major Ashgrove?" Lorne said in surprise.

"Sis and Laura sort of hijacked the party. So I thought I'd hijack it back." Blue grinned and waved as her team crossed the lawn. There was her Major, Victor Ashgrove, and fellow marines Lieutenant Katherine Peters and Captain Marcus Wrainwright, along with their scientific advisor, Doctor Radek Zelenka.

"What a charmink garden," Doctor Zelenka straightened his glasses on the bridge of his nose as he carefully exited the captain's precious vehicle.

"If you mean 'overgrown and neglected', yeah." Blue nodded and shook his offered hand. "How are you, Doc?"

"Spent the whole trip complaining about my driving, that's how he is." Wainwright grumbled as he threw open the boot of the car and began to search around for something.

"Vell, if you didn't drive like a _nachmelený opice_, I'd have nothing to say, yes?" Zelenka retorted sharply. "_Bůh, ta hosté JÁ am dohnat až k mˇt trvale…"_

"No kidding." Peters said. "I've noticed that pilots drive the same way they fly. Fast and mean and expecting a collision at any second."

"Yeah, thanks, Kathy." Wainwright thrust a case of beer into Blue's arms. "Happy birthday, Australia. So, when are you applying for the old age pension?"

Blue let her breath out in a whoosh and lowered the case to the ground. "Marc, you shouldn't have." She said sarcastically.

"I didn't. Courtesy of the boys and girls at work."

"You know, I would have accepted a cheque."

"I hope you aren't planning on driving home after," Zelenka sounded shocked.

"Me? Drink drive? Nah, I'll just curl up in a corner somewhere among the remains. Jones'll put us up, right, luv?"

Blue made a swatting motion. "Get in there. And don't make a move on my sister!"

"Now all, Marcus has to be in bed by midnight." Peters said.

"And whose bed is entirely optional." Wainwright joked good-naturedly, and was followed inside by Peters and the doctor. Major Lorne gallantly bent down to retrieve the case of liquor and was ushered inside as well, leaving her outside with her Major.

"Coming, Ashgrove?"

"In a minute." Ashgrove said.

Blue stood beside him as Ashgrove looked up at the barely visible stars. "Amazing, isn't it?" He said softly. "Even though I've probably been to each of them, I always make time to look up at them."

"When they're not smog-obscured, I'm assuming. Is this the part where you say something deep and awe-inspiring, sir?" Blue asked wryly. "Look, I'll miss you guys, I really will, but I'm IOA now. I just can't keep doing these... kamikaze runs around the galaxy."

Ashgrove glanced at her, brows raised. "From what I've been hearing, your decision seems... final. Right?"

"Right." Blue looped her arm through the Major's and the two of them joined the Joneses guests.

...

Five years ago people appreciated his genius, until, of course, the organisation he had been enlisted into happened to be toppled by a man that was apparently a triple agent, a renegade SAS trooper, and a solitary alien with a suicidal streak. It was all quite an embarrassing affair, and ex-employees either had the choice to join ASIO or vanish into the crowd, after signing non-disclosure agreements, of course.

After seeing the stars firsthand through Plithss's Stargate, DJ couldn't imagine anything worse than moonlighting for the Australian secret service. He was forced to sign a waiver under threat of ASIO informing his parents of his highly illegal activities, and graduated high school and commenced university like any other person his age, though he found it all incredibly trite and boring.

How could he forget what had achieved?

He kept up to date with the more important global government activities. DJ could reel off all the governments that had or were experimenting with nuclear power, and where exactly the warheads were pointed. He had done it so smoothly that he was doubly certain that he would not be able to be traced. Just another ghost in the machine.

But apparently he wasn't as smooth as he first thought.

It was a sweltering day in summer when they turned up on his doorstep.

"Darren John Cooper?"

"Can I help you?" DJ peered at them around the door. Both men looked entirely too smug for their own good.

"We have been monitoring you for some time." One of the men lent his weight against the door, so DJ couldn't slam it in their faces.

"I have no idea what you guys are talking about."

The two men exchanged smirks. "You're very lucky the Feds aren't here instead of us. They aren't quite as friendly when it comes to matters of homeworld security."

Momentarily lost for words, DJ stepped aside and let them enter the house.

"Who are you, then?" He meant for it to b e a haughty demand, but he choked on the last word when he spotted gun bulges underneath their jackets.

"We are employed under the sole directive to attain alien technology to defend Earth territories at whatever cost." The first man said. "Mr Cooper, we know about the alien corruption in the RAI. We know about the Stargate. We know about Lieutenant Jones, Agent Evans, the Ancient and the Furling. Please don't act dumb."

This time DJ's expression hardly flickered. "What do you want?"

"We've noticed that in the work you submitted to the director of the RAI that you were rather against human-alien alliances. You seemed concerned that some might use Earth as a foothold."

"It still concerns me." DJ said flatly.

"How so?"

There was no more point in lying. "If the Stargate should fall into hostile enemy hands, if the resources in the SGC, Area 51, and contacts from the Atlantis expedition became compromised..."

"Armageddon." The second man said. "But we are in a time of _peace_, after all."

"Alliances crumble in peace."

The two men seemed please with DJ's answers. The first man held out his hand, and after a moment of hesitation DJ shook it.

"Welcome to the Trust, Mr Cooper."

Across the street sitting in front of the cafe was a tall man with brown hair. Later, no one would be able to recall exactly what he looked like or even who he said he was.

Max glared at the men from the Trust, his lips thinning. Then he was gone.

...

..

.

..

...

"_Huh."_

"_What?"_

"_That's another non-ending right there. They save the whole of everything and don't remember any of it? The heroine gets the guy only until she's transferred? The hero died? The secondary character suddenly becomes evil?"_

"_It sounds like an average Stargate episode, actually."_

"_Yeah, but-"_

"_If Blue starts working in an advisory position for the IOA, there's always the possibility that she could turn up in _Stargate: Universe_ the next time I feel inspired. And until then there's always what little DJ's getting up to with the Trust."_

"_Oh, yeah."_

_..._

**AN: Here's hoping I've got the translations for Zelenka correct.**

Nachmelený opice - Drunken monkey.

Bůh, ta hosté JÁ am dohnat až k mˇt trvale - God, the company I am forced to keep.

Yes, DJ's back because I'd been neglecting him for too long. BTW, if anyone's interested, I've planned a sort-of sequel, tentatively titled _Don't Be In the Opening Credits_. DJ and the Trust, the organisation that just won't die...

_**Disclaimer: **_Yeah, I don't own Stargate or any associated characters and don't pretend I do. However, DJ, Harry, Blue & Max are mine, along with other OCs there to fill in the gaps.


	15. Chapter 15

_**AN: The sequel to Stargate: Australia, **_**SGAus: Regression**_** is up, taking place a few months after the end of the original story. And because I'm really a publicity hound, I'm putting and excerpt of the first chapter here.**_

_**Hope to see you there.**_

* * *

After being deployed on Atlantis for the sum total of five years, Lt. Clementine Jones had been beginning to think that the whole stigma of being attached to the International Oversight Advisory might have been a convenient lie to lean on when the personnel of the collective Stargate programs didn't like the orders that were being handed down.

She was soon to find out that it wasn't.

In fact, being shafted sideways into a consulting job at the IOA meant that most of the time she wasn't doing much of anything at all apart from pissing off the people she used to work with.

Blue had worked in military offices when she was eighteen and nineteen, but the IOA had pretty much eliminated any similarities with the Stargate Program or the US Air Force to imbue their offices with the feeling that the SGC was somehow reporting to _them_. Even though the offices were open-plan, and there was hardly a closed door anywhere, that didn't mean it was any less regimented.

The first official communication Blue received was about the _dress code_, believe it or not. Battle fatigues were considered inappropriate, as was a formal military uniform. Instead, Blue was required to wear black pressed pants or a pencil skirt, a clean, pressed blouse, a tailored jacket, stockings and heels.

_All our employees must be clean-cut and convey a professional vibe, _the human resources officer informed her matter-of-factly. _No slouching in a conference call, no face-pulling, especially if we are in negotiations with a foreign dignitary, all coffee cups must be washed and dried and placed back in the cupboard, if we catch you reappropriating stationery, we will be forced to penalise you..._

Good God!

So Blue turned up for her first day, teetering on the heels she hadn't worn for about four years now, product in her hair and lipstick on, feeling as though she was the new kid at school and everyone would laugh at the way she said 'chips' instead of 'fries', or trying for a job knowing beforehand that all the interviewer really wanted was big boobs and a firm butt.

She walked into the building, providing the appropriate identification to the doorman, and was almost past the administration desk when someone called out her name.

"Lieutenant Jones!"

Blue turned, wondering who in this vast building filled with diplomats would know her name.

"Mr Woolsey," She was moderately pleased at his presence. At least there was _someone _here she might have some sort of a rapport with. He offered her his hand, which Blue shook.

"Just Richard will do, now that we're on the same footing."

"Richard." She said, trying out the name. "Call me Blue. Everybody else seems to." Richard Woolsey gave a polite smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling behind his glasses. "D'you often come down to personally welcome people?"

"I actually have a proposition I wish to discuss with you."

...


End file.
